Keywords

1 Introduction

Today, experience factors are increasingly dominating people’s consumption decisions [1]. For any innovative product research and development project, it is no longer necessary to repeat how important it is to achieve effective experience innovation. The UX concept has received increasing attention in the business, academic, and education communities over the past decade. However, compared to traditional knowledge areas such as physics, sociology, philosophy, UX is a young discipline. So far, its basic theoretical construction is still in its infancy. Therefore, with many difficult problems encountered in experience research and design practice, no systematic theoretical resources can give guidance. According to the statistics till the end of 2016 from the US innovation management expert Stephen Werwick, throughout the global only one percent of three hundred of all product innovation projects are truly profitable. This reflects the difficulty of experiencing innovative practices. It also indirectly implies the demand to construct the systematic theory framework of UX. This study focuses on a basic theory problem by thinking and questioning: what exactly is UX?

The International Organization for Standardization defines UX as: “a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” [2] On the one hand, according to the research of Dr. Effie Law of Leicester University, the definition basically reflects the dominant content of the mainstream view of defining UX concept in industry and academia. On the other hand, for the practical phenomenon of cognition and understanding of user experience research and design, the above definition seems to clearly define the object of practice.

However, once starting specific experience research and design practice, you will find that the above definition does not provide an exact practice object. Primally because it only clarifies the extension of the UX concept, but does not point out the core of the UX concept, that is, it does not point out what specific experience elements the user experience contains. To solve the problem, it is necessary to establish an effective user experience classification system. Specifically, the classification system is supposed to include all experience factors and explain all experience phenomena, and it must allow each experience type in the system to refer to a clear and specific experience category. Although some researchers have realized the importance of the experience classification problem and started to make important efforts to establish the classification system, so far, they have not been able to obtain a comprehensive solution. This makes it impossible for user experience research and design practitioners to obtain sufficiently clear research and design objects. Furthermore, as it lacks clear working boundary, it is difficult to review the existing experience issues of products and plan long-term production experience strategies in an appropriate manner.

For this reason, in addition to summarizing the achievements by the existing experience classification research, this paper makes in-depth reflection on the applicability of the research methods used in the existing studies. For the applicable research methods, a new user experience classification system was established. It should be noted that we do not attempt to give a once and for all solution to the problem of experience classification, but based on the values of the previous research to explore a new research path and carry out our research along the path. In this way, it provides a more effective basic platform for experience classification.

2 Related Work

Through literature review on the three platforms of “ACM Digital Library”, “Google Scholar Search”, and “Research Gate”, there are two kinds of studies on the “Experience Classification”.

2.1 Research Work by Marcos

In the paper entitled Typology of the Experiences, the authors Marcos and Stephania [3] adopted pleasant design theory, emotional design theory and experience marketing theory as their research entry point. Relying on deductive reasoning, they developed six experience types found in the user experience phenomenon. First, experience related to the senses. These experiences are directly related to the body’s sensory organs, they are produced faster, and they are derived from instinct, so the cognitive expenditure is lower. The visual stimulus of appearance, and the tactile stimulus of touch all trigger such experience. For example: the smell of a brand-new car, the beautiful appearance of a product, or a comfortable surface to touch. In addition, the experience is related to sex. Second, the sensory experience in using the product, which means the emotional response when using the product. This kind of experience is very subjective and varies from person to person. And it even can be related to history experience. For example, when using a product, the customer will think of someone special. Third, social experience. Social experience occurs between individuals and is mediated by products. These experiences can vary greatly depending on the individuals involved, the technology used, and the environment in which the experience is produced. In this category, reactions occur because of the behavior of other participants and are also related to the product itself. For example, a mobile phone that can send text messages, pictures, videos and call relatives and friends. Fourth, cognitive experience. It is related to the user’s understanding of things. Product features that affect users’ understanding can be aesthetic, semantic, or symbolic. Fifth, use experience. The experience is related to the ease of use and functionality of the product. This experience has been studied in many fields, such as ergonomics, and human-computer interaction in recent years. Its subjectivity is far less than other experience categories. Such as, an easy-to-use car jack. Sixth, motivation experience. The experience type is derived from the experience behavior model in Schmitt’s experience marketing theory. That is, the value of a product lies in satisfying a specific behavior of the user. For instance, the significance of a bicycle product is to motivate users to exercise.

For example, the classification of phenomena is the basic method of human perception of the world, and it is also the only way to go. Therefore, in the sense of helping people understand the phenomenon of experience, the Marcos’ research results obviously make a useful effort to this end, and provide a useful explanatory for the phenomenon of experience. However, for guiding specific experience research and design practice, the classification system has several shortcomings: First, all of the above experience classifications fail to refer to a sufficiently clear experience category, and thus fail to present clear research and design objects. Second, there is a misunderstanding in the classification operation. According to the results of aesthetic research, aesthetic experience is significantly different from ordinary physiological sensory experience in the experience mechanism. However, the paper classifies aesthetic experience with other physiological and sensory experiences into the experience category “sensory-related experience”. Third, it does not explain how the classification system can cover all experience types in the experience phenomenon. Based on our analysis, it is hard to believe that the proposed deductive inference method and the three inference foundations can help answer the questions above.

2.2 Research Work by Pieter

The paper entitled Framework of Product Experience authored by Pieter and Paul distinguishes three types of experience through observation and analysis of product experience phenomena [4]. First, aesthetic experience. It is the pleasant experience obtained through form perception. For example, seeing good-looking designs, hearing beautiful music, feeling good and comfortable, or smelling good staff. Second, meaning experience. That is to say, participating the cognitive activities, such as interpretation, memory, reflection, association, to experience the metaphorical meaning behind the product. For example, luxury goods are a metaphor for wealthy living conditions. Third, emotional experience. Experiential activities related to daily life and emotional phenomena discussed in psychology. For example, love, disgust, empty fear, expectation, pride, disappointment, and so on.

To be sure, the classification framework is also helpful to understand the phenomenon of experience. For the guiding significance of experience research and design practice, on the one hand, aesthetic experience and meaning experience in the framework refer to an experience category based on a clear and unique experience mechanism, to provide the exact objects of practice for design activities. On the other hand, the classification system still has one disadvantage: the category of experience referred to as emotional experience is ambiguous. The reason is that any experience tends to be generated by the four phrases: (1) through the stimulus of things, (2) reflection of sensations to form awareness and perspective, (3) specific emotion caused by reflection, and (4) short-term emotions converted to. In the process, different sense-reflection processes may all lead to the same emotion. However, the psychological mechanism of different sense-reflection processes may be quite different. Therefore, even in the face of a certain type of emotion, it is impossible to anchor an exact experience mechanism as the basis for experience research and design. For instance, from feel to reflection phrase (feel-reflection) in aesthetics obtained by appreciating beautiful car shapes and feel-reflection in symbolic meaning obtained by holding luxury products, both result in the generation of pleasant emotion. But the psychological operation mechanism of them is different. We do not deny that the two kinds of feel-reflection triggered by the sense of pleasure may be slightly different. This bring a problem that even if the research object of experience research is determined, it is impossible to discuss how to conduct user research along a clear experience mechanism.

2.3 Implications for Follow-up Research

Although the existing research results have the above-mentioned shortcomings, they give the following important inspirations for subsequent research. First, according to the analysis in Pieter’s research, in order to establish an effective experience classification system, each type of experience must refer to an experience based on a clear and unique experience mechanism. Only in this way can we provide the exact object of practice for researchers and designers. So how can we get such experience classification? Based on an examination of the research methods in the above two research works, it is found that the existing theoretical frameworks that have some logical connection with user experience, such as pleasant design theory, emotional design theory, and experience marketing theory. They can explain the experience phenomenon from a basic perspective. Because of this, many researchers can construct their theoretical frameworks in a top-down manner, and use it to structure the thick lines of experience phenomena.

However, there is no logic showing how to use them to obtain a detailed experiment classification. It seems quite hard to include all experience phenomena. In contrast, based on observations, feelings, and analysis of various experience phenomena, it is more likely to adopt the bottom-up approach to inductively discover the various experience mechanisms behind the phenomenon. We assume the deductive based methods adopted in existing study are not suitable for experience classification problem. Alternatively, qualitative research based on empirical investigations can be one option. From the perspective of qualitative research methodology, the induction method uses the bottom-up way is more specialized in studying experiential phenomena, which is called Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis method. The method use the case study to focus on special cases so that it analyze the phenomenological experience to obtain the meaning behind. This method is a qualitative research that has flourished in the past two decades. It originated in the field of psychology and is dedicated to interpreting how people understand their own life experience through the perspective of researchers, which is a process of dual hermeneutics. At the same time, it adheres to the special research method and focuses its research interest on the uniqueness of the case. By using the method to analyze the experience phenomenon, we can obtain an explanation of the meaning of the experience activity. This research conclusion is given to interpret the corresponding phenomenon [5].

Secondly, the definition of each type of experience is supposed to be made by providing examples of appropriate experience phenomena to explain the concept of the type. This can help to explain the concept of each experience type more clearly, and make it easier for follow-up researchers to make intuitive judgments on their own.

Finally, although some experience classifications in existing research results show ambiguity, all these classification concepts are likely to provide important clues for discovering new and more specific experience types in subsequent studies.

3 Research Design

Based on the analysis and the thinking of the existing experience classification research, we adopted the qualitative research based on phenomenological interpretation analysis. Our research was conducted following the key principles of empirical research. The purpose is to get enough detailed experience classification system. Ensure each experience concept in the system can refer to a clear experience category based on a unique experience mechanism.

3.1 Research Object

In the experiment, 10 graduate students majoring in psychology at Beijing Normal University were selected as participants of this experiment. We have three reasons for this. First, we assume all experience types exist in various product consumption behaviors and service consumption behaviors in our daily lives. Therefore, it is necessary to select those candidates who are fully and deeply involved in daily consumption activities as research objects. As a result, the full picture of the user experience classification system can be outlined. The selected candidates have fully developed their material and spiritual consumption needs because they are supported by their family’s economic background and its own knowledge and cultural background. Moreover, they are also participating in various consumption practices and projects. Secondly, our experiment requires participants themselves being able to fully understand academic concepts, such as, experience types. More importantly, they can describe their consumer experience clearly and precisely. Based on this requirement, the selected subjects tend to have a good logical understanding ability and analysis ability, we believe they are competent. Third, the candidates have different backgrounds including literature, psychology, medicine, Korean linguistics, finance, computer science, and design. They are more likely to be representatives with personalized interests and generating various consumer needs. This can ensure that this experiment covers much consumption behavior.

In addition, we also listed the first author himself as a research object for the following considerations. Compared with the 10 graduate students, he has a similar research background, and is also a comprehensive and in-depth participant of consumer practice. At the same time, he is the one who knows the research objectives, theoretical application, and research design of this research best. Therefore, our research can let the author himself use introspection to generate the type of user experience found in his life. Especially at the beginning, the author can help better understand related concepts through setting up examples for student candidates.

3.2 Research Process

This experiment was divided into three steps:

  • Step 1: Propose experience types that the author himself has explored. In the process, he uses two methods to try to discover as many types of experiences as possible. First, in the process of reviewing past consumer experiences, use the introspection method to distinguish the types of experiences. Second, reading various types of advertising copyright and product reviews to analyze the types of experience involved.

  • Step 2: Discover new types of experiences through one-on-one interviews with student candidates. During each interview, the interviewees is first told the research intent and look at three typical types of experiences the author has distinguished. Then, a semi-structured interview method is used to encourage them to recollect consumption experiences in the past and to define new experience types, and give a case for each new experience type.

  • Step 3: Analysis of experimental results. In the process, the author summarizes all the experience types he proposed with other experience types collected from other participants to form a table as the result. The table is divided into five columns which are categories from left to right are: serial number, experience type, experience mechanism, typical case, and number of times mentioned by participants.

4 Results

We analyzed the feedback and reports from candidates and summarized 20 categories of experience classification which are shown in the tables (Table 1, 2, 3 and 4).

Table 1. 20 types of experience classification (from 1 to 5)
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Table 2. 20 types of experience classification (from 6 to 10)
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Table 3. 20 types of experience classification (from 11 to 15)
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Table 4. 20 types of experience classification (from 16 to 20)
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In summary, this research presents a new user experience classification system consisting of the following 20 experience types: utility experience, usability experience, aesthetic experience, symbol experience, novelty experience, fashion experience, taste experience, culture experience, kindness experience, reflection experience, motivation experience, cognition experience, living condition experience, region experience, challenge experience, physical experience, option experience, self-achievement experience, emotion experience, mood experience. Among them, each type of experience can refer to an independent and precise experience category based on a unique and clear experience mechanism.

5 Discussion

Our research utilizes a qualitative research method based on phenomenological interpretation and analysis to obtain 20 different experience mechanisms in user experience phenomena. Based on them, 20 categories of user experience are formed. For the results, there are several issues worth noting.

Firstly, compared with the previous research, this study presents more types of experience in the quantity, but each type of experience can refer to a unique and clear experience category.

Secondly, a total of 11 subjects were studied in this study. They are 10 graduate students, and the first author himself. Therefore, the highest number of times that each experience type concept can be mentioned is 11. By examine the results, it is not hard to find that some experience was mentioned frequently but some was only once. According to the results of the above research, it includes both the concept of being mentioned a lot and the concept of being mentioned a few times, even being mentioned only once. Then, compared with the categories mentioned less frequently, does that mean they are more important? the answer is negative. The reason is simple. Once one candidate is clearly aware of the existence of a type of experience, then this is good evidence to prove its existence. The small number of mentions only indicates that not many people are aware of this type of experience, but not the experience type is less important. Therefore, if directly using quantitative method, it will be unreasonable to do the statistical analysis without analyzing the reason of a small number of data.

Furthermore, some experience type concepts are mentioned less often because of two possibilities. The first possibility is following the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and the theory of superior needs, only a few candidates can feel their own needs for high-level needs or unpopular value. And this situation has become the superior demand in their consciousness. The second possibility is because the candidates have some limitations in language expression, abstract thinking and the ability of retrospection, they feel hard to form a clear understanding on some experiences. On the other hand, those experience type that are mentioned less often are more inspiring for finding new opportunities and discovering new market.

Moreover, we admit our experience classification shows the same weakness as the one discussion in related work. We make a statement first. The 20 types of experience classification can give a comprehensive answer to how to conduct specific user experience practice, but it still cannot cover all possible experience.

Finally, there is a big difference between quantitative study and qualitative research, which is the researcher himself can be the candidate involved in the experiment in qualitative research. This means the quality of the research results of qualitative research is related to the subjective ability of the researcher in terms of background experience and academic ability. In terms of this study, we find that the results are restricted by the ability of the researchers. First, the researchers himself can find out how many practical experience types is the key to the research. Secondly, in 10 interviews, to what extent does the researcher guide the interviewees to review the richest past consumption experience as possible, and help the interviewees to discover and extract the experience mechanism behind the consumption experience? Based on the findings, the significance of this study is not to provide a once and for all solution to the problem of experience classification, but to make the applicability of phenomenological research methods present.

6 Conclusion

This research takes the reflection on research methods as the starting point for research. First, we point out the unsuitability of research methods in previous studies. Then, by analyzing the important tasks of user experience classification research, we give a conclusion that user experience classification research can be carried out using qualitative research ideas based on phenomenological interpretation analysis. The research results show that, with the help of qualitative research methods centered on phenomenological interpretation and analysis. Thus, we can utilize the advantages of the bottom-up induction method to discover the rich and different types of experiences and obtain the experience phenomena mechanism behind. In summary, the main contribution of this research lies in two points. First, the applicability of the qualitative research method using phenomenological interpretation and analysis to the study of experience classification is presented. And to provide a more effective platform for the discussion of experience classification issues. Second, the 20 experience types found in this study show correspondingly clear experience research and design objects for user experience research and design practices. In theory, this can play a useful role in guiding relevant practical activities. Why dare to say theoretically? It is related to the characteristics of the interpretive phenomenological analysis research. The quality of the research is closely related to the subjective ability of the researcher. As Fan Menan pointed out in Research on Life Experience [5], at the birthplace of Explanatory Phenomenology, Dutch scholars are committed to the traditional study of phenomenology. Their work is either perfect or terrible, and it is by no means trivial. So, the significance of the results of this research also needs to be tested and judged in practical applications in the future.