Co-experience: user experience as interaction

Abstract

User experience is becoming a key term in the world of interactive product design. The term itself lacks proper theoretical definition and is used in many different, even contradictory, ways. This paper reviews various existing approaches to understanding user experience and describes three main approaches and their differences. A missing perspective is noted in all three: their focus is on only the individual having the experience and neglects the kinds of experiences that are created together with others. To address this, a new elaboration called co-experience is presented. It builds on an existing approach but borrows from symbolic interactionism to create a more inclusive interactionist framework for thinking about user experiences. Data from a study on mobile multimedia messaging are used to illustrate and discuss the framework.