Experience-Oriented and Product-Oriented Evaluation: Psychological Need Fulfillment, Positive Affect, and Product Perception

Abstract

We collected over a thousand technology-mediated positive experiences with media and obtained measures describing aspects of the experience itself (affect, psychological need fulfillment) and of the product (i.e., content and technology) integral to the experience (pragmatic quality, hedonic quality). We found a strong relation between intensity of need fulfillment and positive affect. Furthermore, different activities had different need profiles. Watching was foremost a relatedness experience, listening a stimulation and meaning experience, and playing a competence experience. Need fulfillment and positive affect was related to perceptions of hedonic quality, however moderated through attribution, that is, the belief that the product played a role in creating the experience. Pragmatic quality was not linked to experiential measures. The present study (a) demonstrates the merits of distinguishing between an experience-oriented and a product-oriented evaluation, (b) suggests a set of possible measurement instruments for experience-oriented and a product-oriented evaluation, and (c) details the process of how positive experience is transformed into positive product perceptions and judgments of appeal.

Notes

¹ Note that here and in the following, the terms “variable,” “dependent variable,” “predictor,” and “criterion” are used solely to specify the input to analyses of variance and regression analyses. They do not imply any causality. The present data are correlational in nature. Causal inferences cannot be drawn solely on the basis of correlation.

² ϵ² is a variant of the n² measure of effect size, correcting n²’s known overestimation of effect size, and is thus slightly smaller (Olejnik & Algina, 2000). An n² of .01 is considered a small effect, .06 medium, and .14 large.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marc Hassenzahl

Marc Hassenzahl is a professor of Experience and Interaction Design at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. His work focuses on the theory and practice of designing pleasurable, meaningful and transforming experiences with interactive technologies.

Annika Wiklund-Engblom

Annika Wiklund-Engblom is a research coordinator at MediaCity, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. She is a developmental psychologist and IT-pedagogue. Her research focuses on human emotions and needs for learning, especially in human-media interaction, e-learning, self-regulated learning, and corporate e-learning.

Anette Bengs

Anette Bengs is a researcher at MediaCity, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. She is a doctoral student in developmental psychology. Her research focuses on user experience in general, children's perception of media and particularly on methods to capture and measure user experience.

Susanne Hägglund

Susanne Hägglund is a manager at Content Testing Lab of MediaCity, Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Her work focuses on the understanding of, and the designing for, meaningful meetings between human beings and technology, in industry as well as in academia.

Sarah Diefenbach

Sarah Diefenbach is a professor of Economic Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. Her research focuses on understanding, designing and evaluating the consumer experience of interactive technologies, especially on methods to capture hedonic aspects as well as the aesthetics of interaction.