The first approach presented in this section is from McCarthy and Wright who discuss, "...how technology can be seen in terms of experience with technological artifacts" (p. 42 in [MW04b]). and who state in that regard, "We don’t just use or admire technology; we live with it" (p. 2 in
[MW04a]). McCarthy and Wright orientate on the felt-life of technology, taking into account that, the feeling-life does not begin and end with the immediate quality of an experience, rather it extends across space and time to the sense we make of experience in terms of our selves, our culture, and our lives" (p. 42 in [MW04b]). Building upon that Wright and McCarthy further created a framework, which they presented in their book "Technology as Experience" in 2004 [WMM05].
The framework encounters subtle and complex parts of the pragmatist approach to self-other relations [MW04a]. This describes the emergence of an orientation towards experience in HCI, which, "...suggested that conceptualizing technology as experience might provide appropriate foundations for this new orientation, and outlined the bones of a framework for working with technology as experience that is described more fully elsewhere" (p. in 43 in [MW04b]). By doing so McCarthy and Wright claim that "...self, senses and experience interpenetrate each other, and that the coherence required for a story that is convivial in the telling sometimes shapes the experience (p. 128 in [MW04a]).
The Framework of McCarthy and Wright
The framework is a set of four threads which are connected to each other. It further consists of six sense-making processes [MW04b]. The threads and processes together describe the "Technology as Experience."
The Four Threads of Experience
As seen in Figure 2.1, McCarthy and Wright chose four threads derived from studying pragmatist literature, e.g., of John Dewey (from the late 1920s and the 1930s) and Mikhail Bakhtin (from the 1980s and 1990s) [MW04a]. These threads are not elements of experiences, rather they support the analysis of technology as experiences more clearly. The presented threads should "provide ways of talking about technology that heighten sensibility to people’s experience of it" (p. 80 in [MW04a]). The threads are, as seen in Figure 2.1, (a) the sensual, (b) the emotional, (c) the compositional, and (d) the Spatio-temporal.
(a) The Sensual Thread
The sensual thread questions, "What does the design and texture and the overall atmosphere make us feel?" (p. 42 in [MW04b]). It is about the sensory engagement with situations and guides to- wards the palpable and visceral character of an experience [MW04a]. It focuses on things gathered pre-reflectively as an "immediate sense of a situation" (p.80 in [MW04a]). Here the material af- fects the quality of an experience, like the warmth of a social space or the look and feel of a mobile phone [MW04b]. As an example, McCarthy and Wright refer to Dewey who describes in [Dew] a mechanic’s sense of an engine, the feeling of the rhythms of the engine and the sound. They can hear the slightest problem with the engine and the involvement of the senses leads instinctively to the problem of the engine [MW04a]. The mechanic has the sense of, "...the meaning of things present in immediate experience" (p. 22 in [Dew]).
(b) The Emotional Thread
The emotional thread addresses, "What emotions color the experience for us?" (p. in 42 in [MW04b]). Emotions are seen by McCarthy and Wright as dependent from circumstances, and therefore they differ, for example, the joy of solving a problem from the joy of required love (p.
Figure 2.1: The four (intertwined) threads of experience (based on the figure in the top of p. 42 in [MW04b]).
83 in [MW04a]). These emotions are qualities of experiences and are furthermore, "...the color shot through the experience that holds all aspects of the experience together and makes it different from other experiences" (p. 83 in [MW04a]). Thereby, the emotional thread is about value judg- ments through the emotions, "...that ascribe importance to other people and things with respect to our needs and desires" (p. 84 in [MW04a]). These emotional aspects are essential to how an experience is remembered, e.g., as fun or as frustration [MW04b].
(c) The Compositional Thread
The compositional thread discusses, "How do the elements of an experience fit together to form a coherent whole?" (p. 42 in [MW04b]). Thus, it is about the relationship between the parts and the whole experience [MW04a]. This, "...refers to the narrative structure, action possibility, plausibility, consequences, and explanations of actions" (p. 87 in [MW04a]). The composition thread handles what the experience is about, what happens, how things go together, what happen next, and so on.
(d) The Spatio-temporal Thread
The Spatio-temporal thread examines, "What effects do place and time have on our experience?" (p. in 42 in [MW04b]). Every experience has a Spatio-temporal component [MW04a]. Space and time are important factors for experiences (cf. [Gru02]). These factors are differently sensed depending on the things we experience (e.g., if we are visiting a place for the first time or visiting the place over and over again) [MW04a]. Also the sense of time changes depending on, e.g., "our
Figure 2.2: The six sense-making processes (based on the figure in the bottom of p. 42 in [MW04b]).
willingness to linger" (p. 42 in [MW04b]).
The Six Sense-Making Processes
As McCarthy and Wright state, "Experience does not come to us ready made" (p. 105 in [MW04a]). In addition to the four threads of experience, McCarthy and Wright further add six interrelated, non-linear, sense-making processes to the framework in order to, "...actively construct or make sense of an experience –reflexively and recursively– in a way that seems to fold back into the experience itself" (p. 42 in [MW04b]). To render practical the whole experience, these individual sense-making processes help to analyse technology as experience [MW04a]. The sense-making processes, which are taken under consideration, are (1) anticipating, (2) connecting, (3) interpreting, (4) reflecting, (5) appropriating, and (6) recounting (see also in Figure 2.2). Between the processes no implications of linear or causal relations are made.
(1) Anticipating, or expectation, is one of the sense-making processes in an experience [MW04a]. Prior experiences lead to expectations, possibilities and sense-making, thereby, "We never come to technology unprejudiced" (p. in 42 in [MW04b]).
(2) Connecting, which refers to the sense-making of a situation, is encountered immediately, pre-conceptually and pre-linguistically [MW04a], "We make judgment in an instant and without much thought" (p. in 42 in [MW04b]).
(3) Interpreting as a sense-making process is about the sensing of the narrative structure of an experience. It is about the characters and the action possibilities [MW04a]. So the interpreting process is therefore described as, "We work out what’s going on and how we feel about it" (p. in 43 in [MW04b]).
(4) Reflecting as a sense-making process is about reflection on the feelings (e.g., frustration and pleasure) and, like an inner dialogue, it helps us to meaningfully share the experience with others [MW04a], as "We examine and evaluate what is happening in an interaction" (p. in 43 in [MW04b]).
(5) Appropriatingis a sense-making process based on our senses, on our personal history, and on our anticipated future [MW04a]. "We work out how a new experience fits with other experiences we have had and with our sense of self" (p. in 43 in [MW04b]).
(6) The sense-making process of Recountingis about the fundamental dialogue, which includes telling the experiences to our selves and others [MW04a], "We enjoy storytelling and make sense of experience in stories" (p. 43 in [MW04b]).
Discussion of the Framework of McCarthy and Wright
This framework helps to understand the facets of technology as experience. McCarthy and Wright put the technology first, and therefore the four threads described in their framework are focused on product design. The six sense-making processes help to put the product into an experience context. Thanks to the latter, this analytical approach thus includes an orientation towards experiences. Yet it does not facilitate the user as the centre of the design and is therefore still focused on the product instead of on the human.