Experience before products
Experience before products

For many in business, designing the experience before the product seems a weird thing to ask for. In the end, it is all about computers, mobile phones, game consoles, or washing machines – concrete products addressing concrete tasks. Yes, they should look and feel good, but, hey, working, talking, playing, washing is what people do and we provide products to do so. It is all about the product. This is at best "self-absorbed" as David Grzelak pointed out in his a brief opinion on Advertising Age. I would call it ignorant.

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Inspirations, OpinionsMarc Hassenzahlmarketing, user experience
Interaktive Kulturen: Vier Konferenzen unter einem Dach [updt]
Interaktive Kulturen: Vier Konferenzen unter einem Dach [updt]

Vom 12. bis zum 15. September findet in Duisburg DIE deutschsprachige Konferenz zur Mensch-Technik Interaktion unter dem Motto Interaktive Kulturen statt. Eigentlich sind es ja vier Konferenzen: Mensch und Computer, Usability Professionals 10, DeLFI und Entertainment Interfaces. Die Konferenz findet im Kontext der Europäischen Kulturhauptstadt Ruhr.2010 statt und lädt dazu ein, die vielfältigen Bezüge zwischen digitalen Medien und Kultur zu explorieren.

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Publications, TalksMarc Hassenzahlexperience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience
Experiencing and Experience
Experiencing and Experience

I gave the Generalist - a bilingual German magazine for architecture published by the department of architecture at the Darmstadt University of Technology - an interview on "Experiencing and Experience". It turned out as a very stimulating conversation indeed. Read more: Interview - Generalist 4, 2010 issue on "Use and Habit"

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PublicationsMarc Hassenzahlarchitecture, experience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience
Needs, affect, and interactive products – Facets of user experience [updt]
Needs, affect, and interactive products – Facets of user experience [updt]

Subsumed under the umbrella of User Experience (UX), practitioners and academics of Human–Computer Interaction look for ways to broaden their understanding of what constitutes ‘‘pleasurable experiences” with technology. The present study considered the fulfilment of universal psychological needs, such as competence, relatedness, popularity, stimulation, meaning, security, or autonomy, to be the major source of positive experience with interactive technologies.

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PublicationsMarc Hassenzahlexperience design, human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience
Capturing design space from a user perspective: The Repertory Grid Technique revisited
Capturing design space from a user perspective: The Repertory Grid Technique revisited

The Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) is a method of elucidating the so-called personal constructs (e.g., friendly–hostile, bad–good, playful–expert-like) people employ when confronted with other individuals, events, or artifacts. We assume that the personal constructs (and the underlying topics) generated as a reaction to a set of artifacts mark the artifacts’ design space from a user’s perspective and that this information may be helpful in separating valuable ideas from the not so valuable.

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PublicationsMarc Hassenzahlhuman-computer interaction, methods, repertory grid, user experience