Innovative applications are often complex systems. In designing this kind of application, usability, perceived usefulness and appropriateness of adaptation are the three most commonly assessed... Show More

Innovative applications are often complex systems. In designing this kind of application, usability, perceived usefulness and appropriateness of adaptation are the three most commonly assessed variables. However, in order to obtain a more engaging overall user experience, a good designer should perform proper formative and summative usability tests, based on the user's emotional level, which becomes a user-centered evaluation activity. Moreover, traditional methods are not ideal, as information about the user's emotional state should be captured in an implicit and transparent manner, in order to be non-invasive and more effective. Brain Computer Interface has recently witnessed an explosion of systems for studying human emotion by the acquisition and processing of physiological signals. The authors view Adaptive Virtual Environments, as one of the most representative examples of innovative applications, and also as elicitors of a complex user emotion synthesis. Therefore, in this paper the authors propose a user-centered approach to the design and support of the user experience through an adaptive virtual environment, via brain-computer interface. Firstly, the authors focus on the design of an engaging overall experience for potential users, by exploiting their emotional level as a powerful engine in the interaction experience. Secondly, the author work to enhance the user experience by dynamically adapting the interaction to the user's emotional state, so that there will be a more immersive and satisfying interaction.

Human emotions have been widely researched in many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and medicine. Their importance cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately, so far in software... Show More

Human emotions have been widely researched in many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and medicine. Their importance cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately, so far in software engineering, requirements engineers focus mostly on gathering functional and quality requirements and rarely consider how stakeholders feel or would like to feel when using a software product. Incorporating the user's emotional goals in software engineering can be very challenging considering that emotions are very complex and subjective. Moreover, when it comes to incorporating user emotions in software engineering, existing methodologies or frameworks provide very little guidance to software professionals. In this paper, the authors present work on evaluating emotional goals in a software engineering context. The authors describe the development of a questionnaire as an evaluation tool and evaluate the questionnaire in the context of a digital photo frame placed in the homes of nine older persons living on their own. Further improvements to the tool are proposed based on the findings from the study.

The authors promote agent-oriented models to identify, represent and evaluate high-level abstractions of digital media design projects. A major aspect is the introduction of emotional goals, in... Show More

The authors promote agent-oriented models to identify, represent and evaluate high-level abstractions of digital media design projects. A major aspect is the introduction of emotional goals, in addition to functional goals and quality goals to describe feelings such as having fun, being engaged and feeling cared for. To establish emotional goals, digital media design methods and processes were employed including the development of emotional scripts, user profiles, mood boards and following an iterative participatory design process. This approach proved to be highly successful, not only to represent emotional goals such as fun, tension and empathy, but also to facilitate the ideation, creation and progressive evaluation of projects. The process supports communication between designers, developers and other stakeholders in large multidisciplinary development teams by providing a shared language and common artefact. The process is demonstrated in the development of a Multiplayer Online Role Play Game (MORPG) called Aspergion that promotes respect for people with Asperger's Syndrome.