PSYCHOLOGICAL BASES OF AFFECTIVE ASPECTS OF USE INTERFACE

Abstract

The concept of user`s satisfaction with system performances has been changing in accordance to the results of numerous researches confirming the correlation between aesthetics evaluation and system usability. Satisfaction, as one of the usability indicators, represents affective reaction to the system caused by the so called interaction aesthetic, i.e. by the experience of pleasure. The perception of the visual aesthetic aspects of interface is a trigger of the user`s emotional reactions. All three complementary emotional instances are covered by the paper: physical sensation, emotional expression and subjective experience in the context of the usability studies. The proposal of explanation of emotional reactions on system characteristics, as well as the explanations of relations with the cognitive aspects of usability, are presented. These explanations are associated with the theoretical concepts of social psychology and, also, with the results of the empirical studies in neuropsychological and physiological sciences. Moving toward the domain of theory, a cognitive-emotional reference frame of system usability analysis is suggested. At the end, a critical review of methodological models used in the presented researches is offered. Finally, presented ideas are put in the context of affective computing, an emerging discipline combining of computer and cognitive sciences.