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The disenchantment of affect

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Abstract

In computing design, experience is often broken down, compartmentalized, and engineered: a process that often disenchants the original experience. In this paper, we demonstrate the possibility to design for experience, not by formalizing and rationalizing it, but instead by supporting open-ended engagement and appropriation. We illustrate this approach through Affector, a case study in affective computing, in which we focus on user interpretation and construction of emotional experience over its computational modeling. We derive design and evaluation strategies for enchantment that focus on supporting the ongoing construction and interpretation of experience by human participants over the course of interaction. We suggest that enchanting experiences may be designed only by approaching enchantment obliquely: not by engineering it in, but by providing opportunities where it may emerge.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by NSF awards IIS-0238132 and IIS-0534445. We are indebted to our Affector collaborators: Simeon Warner, Eunyoung “Elie” Shin, David Klein, Rev Guron, Tom Jenkins, Yevgeniy “Eugene” Medynskiy, and Liz Goulding; our Affective Presence partners: Ken Anderson, Bill Gaver and Kristina Höök; and to Paul Dourish, Shay David, Brooke Foucault, Rogerio DePaula, Michael Golembewski, Joseph “Jofish” Kaye, Lucy Suchman, Petra Sundström, Elizabeth Wilson, and the Cornell Culturally Embedded Computing and HCI Groups. Thanks to this issue’s editors and reviewers for helpful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    Phoebe Sengers, Kirsten Boehner & Geri Gay

  2. Literature, Communication and Culture and College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Michael Mateas

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  1. Phoebe Sengers
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  2. Kirsten Boehner
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  3. Michael Mateas
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  4. Geri Gay
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Correspondence to Phoebe Sengers.

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Sengers, P., Boehner, K., Mateas, M. et al. The disenchantment of affect. Pers Ubiquit Comput 12, 347–358 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-007-0161-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-007-0161-4

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