Designing for Affective Interactions

Abstract

An affective human-computer interaction is one in which emotional information is communicated by the user in a natural and comfortable way, recognized by the computer, and used to help improve the interaction. Before the computer or its designer can adapt an interaction to better serve an individual user, feedback from that user must be associated with the actions of the machine: did a specific computer action please or displease the user? Did something in the interaction frustrate the user? One of the essential issues is sensing and recognizing the affective information communicated by the user in a way that is comfortable and reliable. This paper highlights several devices we have built that offer users means of communicating affective information to a computer. 1