Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, 22-25 August 2007, University of Art and Design Helsinki

On the Experience of Love: The Underlying Principles

Beatriz Russo* and Paul Hekkert

Delft University of Technology, Dept. of Industrial Design,

Landbergstraat 15, 2628CE Delft, The Netherlands
* Grant holder of CNPq (National Council of Research) - Brazil
B.Russo@io.TUDelft.nl

Abstract. In design research, general theories on experiential concepts have

been accessed, conceptual models of experiences have been developed, and de-
sign strategies for experience have been presented. However, due to the com-
plex nature of experiences and the multidisciplinary nature of design, we argue
that designers may not be fully equipped with information to design for particu-
lar experiences. In our previous study, we adopted general theories of interper-
sonal love to conceptualize the ‘experience of love’ in person-product interac-
tion. In this paper, we complete this conceptualization and present the underly-
ing principles of love. The principles of love are fixed and predetermined
‘modes of action’ that trigger what is experienced as ‘love’ in the interaction
with consumer products. We believe that, equipped with a complete and clear
set of information over experiential concepts, designers and developers would
be free to develop their own creativity and, consequently, have more control
over their work.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
A.0 [GENERAL]: Conference Proceedings
H.5.2: User interfaces, User-centered design

1 Introduction

We perceive product experience as the “entire set of effects that is elicited by the in-
teraction between a user and a product, including the degree to which all our senses
are gratified (aesthetic experience), the meanings we attach to the product (experience
of meaning), and the feelings and emotions that are elicited (emotional experience)”
[14, p. 160].
Whether we talk about user-centered or product-centered approaches, in the past
years several models of experience – each and every one sharing physical, cognitive,
and emotional aspects – were developed (e.g. the scenes of experiences [16], meaning-
ful relationships [3], and dimensions of experience [11]). However, besides their con-
ceptual differences, it is very difficult to distinguish and dissect these 3 levels of ex-
perience (emotional, aesthetic, and meaning) since we experience “the unity of sensu-
ous delight, meaningful interpretation, and emotional involvement” [14, p. 159]. Ex-
periences happen in ‘a scene of various dynamic aspects’ [16]: they are all tangled and
may occur simultaneously. In addition, experiences are ‘containers’ of “an infinite
amount of smaller experiences” [11 p. 420] and the anticipation or remembrance of
experiences generate other experiences.
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 Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, 22-25 August 2007, University of Art and Design Helsinki

Design researchers have proposed experience approaches (mostly on certain qualities

of interaction) and introduced affective ‘experiential concepts’ such as ‘beauty of
interaction’ [22], attachment [20], engagement [8], enjoyment [6], playfulness [23], or
resonance [19]. In general, most approaches and strategies are limited in relation to the
kind of information they present. Some stick to a more general level of experiences,
referring to grounding theories and, to some extent, its application to design [e.g. 10],
others are very well conceptualized but no (clear) design strategies are drawn [e.g. 12;
16], and others even propose and apply very clear design strategies and methods but
with poor or not precise experiential conceptual information [e.g. 7]. In addition, some
experiential concepts can be very abstract since they are not easily imagined or wit-
nessed in everyday-life and, therefore, less “ecologically valid than others” [10, p. 10].
Once the experience is not ‘named’ it is more difficult to have any clues of what it is
and what it covers.
This sum of factors results in “a research agenda dominated by a multitude of expe-
riential concepts that, to some extent, differ in terms of described affective phenom-
ena, theoretical backgrounds, research purposes, and design possibilities” [10, p. 10].
Although general theories have been accessed, conceptual models of experiences have
been developed, and design strategies for experience have been made, these 3 levels of
information on experiential concepts are not (in general) all accessible (and clear) for
designers and developers. The complex nature of experiences combined with the mul-
tidisciplinary nature of design reflected in a number of dissimilar approaches and
design strategies that – combined – do not deliver the complete message.
We argue that once a clear load of information about experiential concepts is deliv-
ered, designers and developers would be equipped to develop their own creativity and,
consequently, have more control over their work. Designers need to communicate and
become emphatic with the people they design for [12]. They need to “develop their
personal aesthetic towards the different aspects of human experience” [25, p. 174].
Therefore, we propose a structure of three levels of experiential information to de-
sign for experience. This structure consists of (1) the general (or grounded) theories of
the experience, (2) the design conceptualization of the experience, and (3) the underly-
ing principles and strategies to design for the experience. In this paper we present the
third level of this structure – the underlying principles – contextualized in the experi-
ence of love.

1.1 Experiencing Love

Love is inherent in all human cultures and its meaning varies from something that
gives a little pleasure to a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. In ordinary
use love refers to interpersonal relations, whether between mother and child, husband
and wife, brothers or sisters, or friends. However, in everyday-life, people often ex-
press their affection for certain products they own by using the word love.
In our previous exploratory study [24], through the comparative analysis of various
grounding theories on interpersonal love (e.g. Triangular Theory of Love [26]) and
personal-life stories about loved products, we could identify strong similarities be-
tween interpersonal and product-person love. These similarities supported the design
conceptualization of the experience of love and referred to aspects such as the compo-
nents, stages, and rewards of person-product love. This exploration also demon-

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strated that the love nurtured for products is, at many levels, similar to what is called
‘partnering love’, or the love experienced in partnerships such as marriage. Love is a
strong affection for products that arises out of relationships and personal ties.
These findings supported our previous assumption that the love expressed for prod-
ucts is real and not simply expressed metaphorically. Through the analysis of per-
sonal-life narratives about loved products, we collected information about how love in
person-product interaction is experienced (the experience of love), why it is experi-
enced (the reasons), and what permeates this experience (the principles).

1.2 The Design Principles

Since the phenomenon of love in person-product relationships is identified, the gen-

eral theories of interpersonal love accessed, and the design-conceptualization of the
experience of love defined, in this paper we focus on the principles that trigger the
experience of love.
A principle is a basic, essential element that determines the intrinsic nature or char-
acteristic behavior of something [1]. The principles of love are fixed and predeter-
mined ‘modes of action’ that underlie what is experienced and perceived as love. They
are the essence, the core elements that represent the experience of love. These princi-
ples were identified through the analysis of reasons why people experience love when
interacting with products.

2 The Underlying Principles of Love

Here, we present the 5 principles that rule the experience of love. At this point, some
general design strategies are offered, although they have not been yet validated. This
is intended to be covered by further studies. The principles are illustrated based on
cases from our previous exploration [24] and they refer to the love experienced
through interaction with products in a broader sense, not the love experienced strictly
during physical interaction and use. These principles are not presented in any specific
order or hierarchy, although some were observed to be more frequent than others.

2.1 Fluent Interaction

“I love to use my mobile phone because it responds so quickly. It flows. I press the
buttons and it does exactly what I want it to do. I feel like I am in control: I know what
I am doing with it and, at the same time, it responds to me. I feel like it understands
me”.

People love to use products that interact fluently. Fluent interaction is a concept very
much related to what Csikszentmihalyi [9] calls the experience of flow – an optimal
experience, a mental (cognitive) state of operation in which the person is fully im-
mersed in an activity that involves processes such as interpretation, memory retrieval
and associations.
Flow of interaction is largely applied in the field of game design since any game
that can provide flow to the user will, by definition, be successful as the user will feel

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a strong sense of involvement (immersion) and enjoyment when playing [17]. The
main difficulty to design games based on flow is the fact that games are often experi-
enced by more than one person [4]. Flow is characterized by a feeling of extreme
focus/attention, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Csik-
szentmihalyi presented eight components for the experience of flow but not all of
them are needed for flow to be experienced.
− Activity must have clear goals;
− One must be concentrated and focused;
− A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness;
− The action awareness merges to the activity itself;
− Direct and immediate feedback;
− Balance between ability level and challenge;
− A sense of personal control over the situation or activity;
− The activity is intrinsically rewarding.
In the experience of love, fluent interaction refers to the last four components pre-
sented. Once the product provides immediate feedback, the course of interaction is
apparent and users have the chance to adjust their behavior (and prevent mistakes). A
balance between their personal abilities and the challenge the product presents pro-
vides the pleasurable impression of intimacy that only experienced users can have. A
sense of control over product usage or the whole situation that involves use gives a
sense of security and self-conscious. All these factors contribute to a rewarding ex-
perience. In the case of love, what is also interesting is that even when the activity
seems slightly more challenging, users experience a feeling of transcendence, since
they overcame former (imagined) limitations.

2.2 Affective Memory Recall

“I love to use this agenda. It was made by my girlfriend and she gave it to me right
before she went to South America, to study for 6 months. It reminds me of her. Since
she made it herself, this agenda has everything I need and she even put some pictures
of us in it. It is quite functional also”.

People love to use products that hold affective memories and act like reminders of
these memories. A perfect example of that are the so-called souvenirs. Stewart [27]
explains that souvenirs “authenticate our experiences and become a survival sign of
events that exist only through the invention of narrative”. This concept is related to
Belk’s [5] idea of extended self, as products gain a symbolic meaning to the owner
when associated with memories from the past. Objects that ‘provide’ affective mem-
ory recall have the power to hold and release memories people invest in them: memo-
ries of a specific period of time, a cherished person, or a special event. In addition,
products that remind people of their past contribute to define and maintain a person’s
sense of identity [21].
In the theory of ‘meaningful relationships’ proposed by Battarbee & Mattelmäki
[3], bonding with products promote the occurrence of meaningful associations which
comprise the memories, stories and values attached to the object. The ‘world of prod-
uct meaning’, one of the scenes of experience proposed by Jääskö et al. [16], refers to
the historic perspective of product interaction, the roles that products take in people’s
lives. This world is accessed through stories that reveal these memories and is about

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being attached to products. Our previous study also contributes to this account: par-
ticipants who shared their experiences involving affective memory recall with the
beloved products were specially attached to them [24]. Products that contain affective
memories are irreplaceable and people would handle them more carefully, clean them
more often and even avoid its use (in order to preserve them) [24, 19].
Mugge et al. [21] propose that designers can influence the attachment between con-
sumers and product by encouraging the memories associated with a product. They
propose two strategies to encourage product-related memories: to implement odors
that bring back memories and making sure that a product ‘ages with dignity’. A fact
that eases the design of products that contain memory, although not with the same
weight of attachment, is the case of products that ‘remind’ of other products: one may
love to use an antique pasta machine because it reminds him/her of the afternoons
spent making pasta at grandmother’s house, with a similar machine.

2.3 Symbolic (Social) Meaning

“I love to use my IPod nano. I must say I don’t even know exactly how it works, but I
love it. It is such a cool gadget. When I am in the train, I feel so hip when I take it
from my pocket, unroll the wires, put the headphones in my ears, take the cover off
and turn it on. I notice that people around me, specially the ones who are using regu-
lar mp3 players, always look when I perform this ritual (…) and what I find funny is
that when I bump into someone who also has the white earphones, I feel that we both
look each other and display some kind of approval look (…) as if we could understand
each other”.

People love to use products that comprise symbolic meanings. This principle is not
very different from the previous one, since objects that bring back memories do com-
prise symbolic meanings. However, the focus here is on meanings that can be exposed
to and/or perceived by others, in a social environment.
Products that can encourage and facilitate the construction and familiarization of
people’s self identity and the communication of this identity are expected to fulfill
users with social pleasures. Because we are natural social beings, ‘who experience
things together’ [16], socio-pleasure is gained from interaction with others [18]. In the
‘scenes of experience’ [16], the “world of humans” is where people’s personalities,
attitudes, values, motivations, life-style and past experiences have an important role.
Beyond their utilitarian function, the products we own and use form a complex lan-
guage of symbols.
Here, this principle is related to 2 specific scenarios: (1) the idea that people look
for products that already have an identity and that by owning this product these quali-
ties are expected to be seen as theirs (products as symbols of self-concept) [13] and (2)
the fact that people want to communicate their identity, intrinsic values, and beliefs
through products (products acts as symbols within a social context) [13].
To design for these scenarios may not be an easy task, since designers should trans-
late intangible concepts into recognizable visual/material features. However, Govers
[13] have demonstrated that consumers can recognize these concepts in product fea-
tures and that some tendencies in people’s behaviors can be used as strategies. For
example, one who wants to be perceived as someone who is ‘trusting’ and ‘reliable’
would most likely give preference to products that are perceived as having the same
characteristics.

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2.4 Shared Moral Values

“I love to use this hair comb from The Body Shop. I like products from The Body Shop
because they make responsible products. I know that, for example, no forest was de-
stroyed in the making of this comb, or any other product they make; no animal was
injured with animal testing (…) and I like to think that I am part of it, that I am con-
tributing to a better world”.

People love to use products through which they can share moral and ethical values. It
is about a match between the product’s and users’ ethical and moral beliefs. In an era
where we face the mass destruction of our planet’s natural resources and an imminent
global warming, an increasing number of deadly diseases and poverty, these values
have gained an enormous importance in people’s life.
Conscious (or ethical) consumerism is a social movement based on the impact of
purchasing decisions on the environment and the consumer’s health and life in gen-
eral. The main motivation to consume ethically is certainly the pleasure people get
from it. Conscious consuming leads to ideological pleasures – an abstract form of
pleasure that is experienced when a product embodies such values and conveys a
sense of environmental responsibility to the user [18]. One who consumes ethical
products is surrounded by a rewarding feeling of being “the one who contributes to a
better world”; it is a sense of being good to other people and to their selves. It en-
hances people’s personal values.
Conscious consumers are aware of the things they buy: products should be made
ethically, without harm or exploitation of humans, animals or the natural environment.
They favor ethical products, be they fair trade, cruelty free, organic, recycled or pro-
duced locally. Products may be developed with the input of such values. The prefer-
ence for designs and materials that do not pollute or exploit the environment, that can
be recycled or re-used, or products that are produced in a more ‘transparent’ way (do
not explore people, children or animals) may lead to gratifying experiences.

2.5 Pleasant Physical Interaction

“I love to play tennis with this racket. I love it because I don’t feel it when it is with
me. It is light and I can feel the grip. Some rackets are really heavy and when you hit
the ball you can feel it resonating in your bones. This one has the right size for my
hands (…) my hands really fit to it. I also like the sounds it makes when I hit the ball”.

People love to interact with products that are physically pleasant. Hekkert [14] refers
to the term ‘sensuous delight’ to indicate how a product can gratify our senses. Our
sense of touch not only provides us with information about the world but also makes
us aware of our own body, which forms a basis for the experience of self [14].
Although for the experience of love some other senses may also be combined (like
in the example, sound) pleasant physical interaction refers to product’s tactual proper-
ties. According to Sonneveld [25], the tactual properties of products (objects) can be
considered as properties related to five domains of tactual experiences: the substance
of the object’s material (its hardness, elasticity, plasticity, temperature, and weight), its
structure or geometrical aspect of the object (global shape, volume, and balance),

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 Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces, 22-25 August 2007, University of Art and Design Helsinki

its surface (texture and patterns), and its moving parts (the way moving parts move in
relation to each other).
To design for tactual (pleasant) experiences of interaction, Sonneveld [see 25] de-
veloped a designer’s guide – which consists in six maps (one for each domain of tac-
tual experience) – that allows and supports designer’s associative way of thinking.

3 Discussion and Conclusion

Although the principles of love were observed through the analysis of stories, other
researchers have also been aware of these elements of experiences and have come
across principles in a more spontaneous manner. In the case of surprise [19], the
analysis of products in the market revealed the apparent information incongruence
between vision and touch and that these products were likely to be a source of surprise
(e.g., a lamp that looks like it is made out of glass – and feel rigid and fragile – is
actually made of rubber, and is flexible and soft).
In order to experience love, the principles presented are not expected to act alto-
gether. Products can be loved by obeying to only one of these principles, although the
love experienced seemed stronger and more frequent when at least two or three of
these principles worked jointly.
Despite of their importance, just designing for these principles may not be enough
to evoke the experience of love. Although the principles are the essence, the core
elements that represent the experience of love, the principles alone may not distin-
guish love from other experiences. It is still not known what makes one loves a mobile
phone because of its fluent interaction and another does not, since certain principles
may be more appealing to certain people than others. In addition certain principles
may be evoked by specific types of products, in specific love stages, by a specific
gender. Additional studies will look for these aspects of person-product interaction in
loving relationships. Further studies must also investigate how designers deal with the
three levels of information, how they process these levels and use them to design for
the experience of love.
The structure proposed in this paper provides a clear and convenient guide for de-
signers and developers to design consumer products, facilitating the experience of
love. Since it is a hierarchical structure, each step taken helps the development of the
other, which makes the ‘story’ of the experience more logical.

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