In situ informants exploring an emotional mobile messaging system in their everyday practice

We have designed and built a mobile emotional messaging system named eMoto. With it, users can compose messages through using emotion-related gestures as input, rendering a background of colours, shapes and animations expressing the emotional content. The design intent behind eMoto was that it should be engaging physically, intellectually and socially, and would provide for an aesthetic experience. In here, we describe the user-centred design process that lead to the eMoto system, but focus mainly on the final study where we let five friends use eMoto for two weeks. The study method used combined Experience clips – where one user is equipped with the system and a friend acts as a spectator documenting experiences of use in situ – with Cultural probes – a set of provocative materials that users respond to and thereby document their own practice and understanding of the system. The five users and five of their friends acting as spectators were able to report and reflect on their c...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: IJMMS
• Authors: Petra Sundström, Anna Ståhl, Kristina Höök
• Keywords: Emotional, EMoto, Experiences, IJMMS 2007