Dynamics of Experience

diagram : from Forlizzi and Battarbee 2004 , <Understanding experience in interactive systems>Cambridge, ACM PRress

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Fluent Interaction - This is the kind of interaction that is automatic or based on skills. Examples are riding a bicycle and making the mroning coffee.

Cognitive Interaction - This is the kind of interaction that has to be learned from the product at hand. An example of cognitive interaction is trying to identify the flushing mechanism of a toilet in a foreign country.

Expressibe Interaction - This is the interaction that help the user form a relationship to a product or some aspect of it. In expressive interaction users may change, modify, or personalize, invesitng effort in creating a better fit between person and product. Examples are restoring an old chair and painting it to accent the color fo the wall.



Most interactive system address the first two interactions well; mostly because these interactions are predictable. However, the third kind of interaction is often unaccounted for. This limits interactivity.

People adapt such systems to work in the manner that they believe is appropriate to that environment and context. But can the landscape be designed to predict or even encourage expressive interaction? To understand the problem we must first understand the differnce between the computational model and an experiantial model.