Conference article

This paper presents an experimental study that assesses the impact of novelty appraisal on user´s emotional feelings and in their evaluation of user experience with commercial products. After actual interaction with 4 products differing in two levels of design typicality of design in two categories of products (cameras and highlighters) participants used a SD method for the evaluation of user experience quality; and a two-dimensional mood scale survey for assessing their own emotional feeling. Likewise; participants were asked if they had seen and if they had used the products before; obtaining three cases: 1. who had already used it before (no novelty); 2. who had seen it but not used it (relative novelty) and 3. who had not seen it before (absolute novelty). The previous experience of participants with the particular product defined the degree of novelty appraisal; confirming that typical products were more likely to be appraised as known and atypical ones as novel.

Results on emotional feeling measures showed slightly higher pleasure levels for the not novel cases and significantly higher arousal for the relative novelty cases. For the quality of experience evaluation; the highest scores for the no novelty cases were “practical”; “useful”; “predictable” and “easy to understand”; the relative novelty cases were “interesting”; “creative”; “satisfying” and “like”; and the absolute novelty cases were for “interesting”; “creative”; “new” and “innovative”. These findings suggest that visual stimulation prior the first use interaction has an arousal enhancing effect in the experience of use; accompanied by qualities related to novelty.

Novelty; Typicality; User Experience; Emotion.