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Visual perspective has dominated experience research in humantechnology interaction for decades now. The neglect of other sensory modalities is gradually being addressed by scholars and designers, who investigate user experience based on touch, smell, taste, sound and even expressive bodily interactions. In cognitive and affective processes, user experience is always multi-modal, not just regarding perceived multi-sensory information, but also while perceiving through one modality we mentally construct information relevant to the other senses. This article reports the results of an experiment, where participants (N = 52) appraised materials either only by touching them or only by seeing. The results indicate that with certain affects, the logic of the appraisal depends on the modality. These results are discussed within the theoretical framework of mental content, apperception, and appraisal. Further, we discuss the relevance of the findings for material design, especially in the context of multimodal interaction.

Esitetään Jyväskylän yliopiston informaatioteknologian tiedekunnan suostumuksella julkisesti tarkastettavaksi yliopiston Agora-rakennuksen auditoriossa 2 kesäkuun 6. päivänä 2015 kello 12.Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by permission of the Faculty of Information Technology of the University of Jyväskylä, in building Agora, auditorium 2, on June 6, 2015 at 12 o'clock noon. UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ JYVÄSKYLÄ 2015User Researchers of human-technology interaction have started to emphasise the importance of technology users' experiences: experience is an important aspect of daily life, and thus it should be taken into account in human-technology interaction research and in design of new technologies. However, scientific study of conscious experience is difficult, and the field of user experience research is afflicted by incompatible definitions, assumptions, and guidelines for investigating users' experiences and designing for them. This problem is emphasised by the lack of foundational framework, which would allow for comparing the metascientific and methodological assumptions behind different accounts of user experience. Here, such an account is presented in the form of foundational analysis of human-technology interaction. The resulting methodological framework is used to review theories of user experience with a conclusion that while the topics investigated under the umbrella of user experience seem to be the correct ones, their operationalisation lacks proper psychological basis. As a result of the foundational analysis of user experience, one of the core concepts related to conscious experience, emotion, is introduced, and different psychological accounts for it are reviewed using the methodological framework. Appraisal theory of emotion is shown to provide methodologically the best option for studying emotional user experience. A review of empirical studies, included as the articles of this thesis, supports this conclusion. Emotional user experience is discussed in terms of (1) a competence-frustration model, (2) individual coping differences in human-technology interaction, (3) mental contents of emotional experience, and (4) the non-conscious cognitive processes associated with the appraisal process. These elaborations can be used to investigate what users experience emotionally when they interact with technology, and explain these experiences. Such investigations should provide valid knowledge structures for designers, who aim to create technologies with certain experience goals.Keywords: user experience, emotion, appraisal, mental content Author's address ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAs I started my studies on emotion in human-technology interaction over four years ago, I wasn't that familiar with the topic, nor with the field of humantechnology interaction in general. What I've learned during my doctoral studies, and what I hopefully can teach to others, has not been achieved by myself alone, but with the help of multiple people: colleagues in academia, industrial partners, family members, study partic...

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