The cult of cute

Abstract

29 i n t e r a c t i o n s . . . n o v e m b e r + d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 2 A A R O N M A R C U Sfast forward I n many user-interface-design-oriented organizations and publications, we learn increasingly of a concern about issues that extend the reach of the profession beyond traditional human factors and usability, where usability is often summarized as a combination of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. I have in mind the substantive and rhetorical additions of usefulness and appealparticularly, achieving a pleasurable user experience. These objectives seem especially important for mobile device design, for which usability and product enjoyment are equally of concern. It is a charming twist of history that the classical architectural design ideals of commodity, firmness, and delight proposed by Vitruvius more than 2,000 years ago should resurface.One sign of this interest are the recent papers on fun and anthropomorphism, for example, in the Proceedings of the HCI 2002 conference, which recently took place in London [8,13,14]. Even the esteemed computer scientist David Gelernter has weighed in on the subject of computers and happiness [3]. Another example is Patrick Jordan's book Designing Pleasurable Objects: An Introduction to the New Human Factors [4], in which he uses psychological theories to propose four levels of pleasure that designed artifacts should provide us (in order of importance from highest to lowest):e r a c t i o n s . . . n o v e m b e r + d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 2 Aaron Marcus, President Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. Aaron@AMandA.com i n t e r a c t i o n s . . . n o v e m b e r + d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 2 PERMISSION TO MAKE DIGITAL OR

User experience, satisfaction, and continual usage intention of IT

“…In addition to task/goal achievement, IT usage in itself can be a source of pleasure and satisfaction. This requires us to focus on user experience, which emphasizes engagement, fun, and delight rather than just functionality or ease-of-use (Wright et al, 2001;Marcus, 2002).…”

Web Engineering at the Frontier of the Web 2.0: Design Patterns for Online 3D Shared Spaces

“…In HCI, an experience is broadly defined as the set of user-product interactions and all aspects of "experiencing" an interactive product-physical, sensual, emotional, social and aesthetic [2,6,57,60,66], while the concept of "quality of experience" expresses " how well a product serves its purposes, how well it fits into the entire context in which it is used, how pleasant, compelling and valuable it is for its users" [2].…”

From seduction to fulfillment

“…As an example, a current cultural fad is the "cute" and "babylike" anthropomorphic forms of Sanrio's Hello Kitty line [9] and Alessi house wares products [3] (notably the design work of Giovannoni, Mendini, Pirovano, and Venturini). These products attempt to spark our social and nurturing instincts, ultimately to sell the product [14]. In such cases the anthropomorphic form is merely seductive, its use-value ends after the sale is made.…”