Comments on Design for Emotion and Flow

Chris Rodriguez — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:38:29 GMT

Super informative article! Thanks so much.

Andy Polaine — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:16:06 GMT

Trevor, although Csikszentmihalyi does differentiate between pleasure and enjoyment, his differentiation is highly subjective, as is explanation of what activities create the flow state (especially in his earlier books and papers). He specifically dismisses videogames, for example, stating that they only allow players/users to live out activities vicariously compared to mountain climbing, hiking and so forth. This is clearly not the case because flow states are repeatedly reported by gamers and, indeed, inducing it has been one of the hallmarks of compelling game design. The progress through levels whilst attaining skills to attempt and subsequently complete the next level is classic boredom and anxiety balance. Yet Csikszentmihalyi’s account smacks of ignorance of this medium and sounds to me more like “those kids should jolly well go for a brisk walk and get some fresh air to achieve their flow experience” rather than anything more concrete.

The distinction, in this case, is also a false one, because they are so interrelated. You can derive pleasure from pain, enjoyment from pain, pleasure from experiencing something unpleasant, even, if only in the negative of being relieved of the unpleasantness. You can also derive enjoyment from something unpleasant and be totally bored by something pleasant.

Csikszentmihalyi’s definition of auto-telic is based around satisfaction, which escapes the pleasure/enjoyment confusion: “The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself. Even if initially undertaken for other reasons, the activity that consumes us becomes intrinsically rewarding [...] it refers to a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward.” (1990, p.67 in my edition).

The main point here is that interaction designers can encourage this self-contained activity, the intrinsically rewarding aspect unrelated to future benefit through the design of interactions and interfaces that are rewarding in themselves to use. Interfaces that are satisfying in their own right encourage users to play with them and explore them further, which means they learn them without thinking about learning them.

ji kim — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:04:56 GMT

Realworld story that I like to share – somewhat deals with design for flow.
I have a friend who works as a operations manager at a large hotel chain. Recently the hotel chain upgraded their hotel room management software – including a brand new browser based user interface. When you first look at this new user interface – it looks lot easier to use and more visually pleasing than its predecessor – green 80’s looking ASCII looking interface that required the user to know lot of the keyboard shorcuts. Two week later after the software was deployed to all the hotels, my friend conducted a surey about the new system. Response was interesting – the hotel staff really hated the system because it took so long to accomplish tasks using the new system during the busy time (if you’ve been to hotels in las vegas or new york during conference seasons, you know what I’m talking about.)
I’m sure there are various reasons/cause for the negative response (people don’t like changes…) – but when I first looked at this problem, I couldn’t help wonder: Did the designer or engineer for this new system consider designing the system to take advantage the Hotel staff’s flow state? I’ve seen the same hotel staff booking rooms during very busy time using the old ascii system – they were very fast and efficient with superhuman like response rate – they were def. in flow.

well anyways, thanks for the article!!

ji kim — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:26:51 GMT

Dave Cronin (from cooper) also talked about Design for Flow at the interaction 08 conference :) I’m def. fan of flow or stoke (for some of us who surf).
http://interaction08.ixda.org/Dave_Cronin.php

Trevor van Gorp — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:34:38 GMT

Andy,
Csikszentmihalyi also differentiates between “pleasure” and “enjoyment”. Auto-telic experiences are those that bring enjoyment rather than merely pleasure. When people stop to consider what the most rewarding times of their life have been, they often remember times when they successfully faced a challenge that required them to meet some expectation or reach some goal. These challenging experiences may or may not have been “pleasurable” and fall under the category Csikszentmihalyi calls “enjoyment”. Of course, as product designers, we would prefer that people using our products experience pleasure, but enjoyment is centered around the challenge of completing a worthwhile task.

The other difference between pleasure and enjoyment is that pleasure can be felt without any effort, through distraction, drugs or alcohol, while enjoyment requires that attention be focused on an activity. I might add that pleasure is also often linked to novelty. Using the touch interface on the iPhone does help to create that sense of pleasure and fun (as most things that involve the kinesthetic sense do) but I don’t see that being enough to ensure the success of a product over repeated usage.

Andy Polaine — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:55:24 GMT

It’s also worth noting that a significant part of Csikszentmihalyi’s theory is that many of the activities are ‘auto-telic’ – they’re intrinsically satisfying in and of themselves and aren’t about doing something in order to achieve some extrinsic goal. Plenty has been written about interaction design principles to aid users to achieve a certain task, but there’s little about the intrinsic pleasure of interactivity in it’s own right.

In other words, some things are pleasant to use and do (often related to bodily motion, even when using the mouse and keyboard) regardless of the goal or task in hand. Building some of those intrinsic pleasures into an interface makes a huge difference to the level of play and playfulness of the interface, which in turn creates both a relaxed and exploratory state of mind in the user (which means they’ll find the interface easier to use even if it isn’t, because they’ll explore other options more) and it also helps them learn the interface faster without thinking about it as a task. It’s one of the things Apple do well, especially on the iPhone/iTouch. The playfulness of the interface is not to be under-estimated. Plenty of people ‘just want to have a go on one’ regardless of the tasks or functions they may or may not want to carry out.

Trevor van Gorp — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:40:02 GMT

Chris,
You make a good point. In fact, its something I’d like to discuss with some users who have sensory impairments. My initial impression is that flow might be somewhat easier to attain for someone with visual impairments, simply because they have less sensory input to demand their attention and distract them from their task. Of course, that’s a very broad generalization, as no two sensory impairments are exactly the same.

As long as relevant feedback is immediately provided (whether it’s visual, auditory, or tactile) the flow of attention remains in place. This understanding would be more important when products & services are designed especially for people with particular sensory impairments. For example, how does a visually impaired person successfully use a touchscreen iPhone without tactile feedback? In these cases, the feedback would need to be tailored to the individual(s) in questions.

Trevor van Gorp — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:56:11 GMT

Jamie,
The influence of social dynamics on the flow state is definitely something to consider. As someone who has worked both in teams and as an individual consultant, I know that it’s easier for me to enter flow when I have more of a say in defining the challenges that I undertake.

So, I’d say a higher level of independence and personal responsibility/accountability (whether working on your own or as part of a team) definitely impacts how easy it is to enter the flow state. For example, if you feel that a task you’re currently involved in (or have been assigned to) has little real value, your motivation to complete that task will be lower than if it was either self-assigned or had a more obvious impact.

I would have liked to explore the impact of social dynamics to a greater degree, but wanted to keep this article relatively focused on communicating the main idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

Natasha Lloyd — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:31:00 GMT

Great article.

It reminded me of the keynote on Alternate Reality Games by Jane McGonigal at SXSW. She talked about why people are so drawn to games and how we can draw people to “real-life” activities in a similar way. In particular, she mentioned four things that make people happy which games accomplish much better than reality: (1) satisfying work to do, (2) the experience of being good at something, (3) time spent with people you like, and (4) the chance to be a part of something bigger. Some of the ways that games satisfy these four happiness factors is by having good instructions, good feedback, and good community. You suggest offering clear navigation, which is like offering good instructions for our users, immediate feedback, and appropriate challenges, all of which fit right in with what makes people happy. So, it’s not just about flow and motivation, it’s about happiness.

Christopher Butler — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:48:22 GMT

Trevor,

Thanks for the informative article. As I read it, it occurred to me just how much our ability to respond to good or bad design and/or information architecture online depends upon our senses. I wonder how the concept of “flow” would (or could) factor in to a designer’s ability to communicate information online to the disabled- particularly, the blind. Since the causes (clear goal, immediate feedback on the success of attempts to reach that goal, a challenge you’re confident you have the skills to handle), characteristics (total concentration and focused attention, a sense of control over interactions, openness to new things, increased exploratory behavior, increased learning, positive feelings) and consequences of flow (loss of consciousness of self, distortions in the perception of time, activity is perceived as intrinsically rewarding) don’t seem to necessarily assume proper function of all physical senses, what types of response could be expected to factor in to a blind user’s (for example) behavior?

Chris

Andy Polaine — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:46:12 GMT

Flow and interactivity is part of my PhD. I wrote a paper all about it a few years back: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1109204

I can send anyone who is interested the complete text.

Neil Wehrle — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:00:25 GMT

I’m glad you wrote this – nicely framed and written. I’ve wanted to cover Csikszentmihalyi for some time. Lucy Suchman also discussed what you’ve called Experiential/Goal Use, discussing the impact a user’s environment has on how they interpret the world. While the Novice/Experience User split is a useful way of framing this, clearly both types of users engage in both Experiential and Goal-driven interaction. Suchman goes into much more detail in Plans vs. Situated Actions (the title explains alot).

ben smithson — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:52:32 GMT

Great article. Thanks for posting!

Jamie Owen — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:40:00 GMT

A satisfying read. It’s great for eLearning designers because of the parallels between interaction design and important elements of cognitive psych/instructional design (if they chose to read it that way).

For example, your thoughts on removing impediments in “Designing for Flow” are reflective of Chandler & Sweller’s ideas on intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive loads. The “Attention and Flow” section lists some of the primary pedagogical elements instructors use. And your Figure 1 reminds me of several iterative instructional design models that build on a learner’s increasing skills to present appropriate challenges (e.g., Bruner’s spiral, Reigeluth’s elaboration). Meeting each challenge successfully leads to greater skill, which leads to greater challenge, then greater skill, etc.
In your terms, this becomes the Flow Channel of eLearning.

One thing I would have liked to see explored is the impact of social dynamics on staying in the Flow Channel: how does peer pressure or workplace culture, for example, impact what is defined as a challenge, a skill, anxiety, or boredom? How would these be framed under different circumstances?

Benson Low — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:50:48 GMT

Great article. Having worked a few years in the game industry really pushes the limits of poor (90%) to great (10%) user interfaces. I was all the better because of this. I would just like to add another case, Spore’s Creature Creation UI is exceptional. It’s just such a rewarding process.