Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters - Methods for Exploring Aesthetic Interactions

Summary

The paper argues that aesthetics and interaction should be treated as interwoven rather than separate concerns. It presents two design methods for exploring richer product interactions beyond ease of use: interaction relabelling, which maps the actions of familiar mechanical objects onto new electronic products, and designing for extreme characters, which uses exaggerated fictional users to expose hidden emotional, social, and cultural issues. Both methods are illustrated through the design of a handheld appointment manager.

Important Keywords

• Aesthetics of interaction: the experiential quality of what people do with products, not only how products look.
• Interaction relabelling: exploring a new product by mapping its interactions onto an existing object or activity.
• Extreme characters: fictional users with exaggerated attitudes or needs used to push design thinking beyond averages.
• Product design: the design context in which interaction qualities are explored through products and use.
• Richness of actions: the variety and nuance of actions a product invites from users.
• Richness of role: the different social or personal roles a product can take in people's lives.
• Sociocultural role: the meanings a product has within social and cultural practices.
• Appointment manager: the example design domain used to explore PDA interaction concepts.
• PDA interaction: interaction with personal digital assistants as a design case in the paper.

• Emotional attitudes: feelings and stances toward products that extreme characters help reveal.

• Interaction relabelling: reinterpreting existing interactions as if they belonged to another product or context.

• Extreme character: fictional user with exaggerated traits, values, or preferences.
• Average-user trap: designing only for a generic middle case and missing meaningful variation.
• Aesthetic interaction: interaction qualities concerned with felt, expressive, cultural, and experiential aspects.

Important Concepts

• Aesthetics of interaction shifts attention from ease of use and appearance alone toward enjoyment, sensory qualities, conceptual qualities, actions, and roles.
• Rich interaction requires varied actions, appropriate timing of responses, differentiated appearance, and awareness of the sociocultural meanings products carry.
• Interaction relabelling uses an existing object, often a mechanical one with many moving parts, as a source of new interaction possibilities for an electronic product.
• Designing for extreme characters replaces generic user scenarios with exaggerated fictional characters to reveal emotions and traits that conventional personas may hide.
• Extreme character design can expose issues such as secrecy, status, privacy, autonomy, responsibility, and social relationships in product use.

• The authors warn that extreme characters can become stereotypical or offensive, so character choice matters.

• Interaction relabelling maps interactions from an existing artifact onto a new design problem to reveal unexpected interaction possibilities.

• Extreme characters are exaggerated fictional users that help designers move beyond average-user assumptions.
• Both methods are used to break fixation, explore aesthetic and cultural dimensions, and generate unusual concepts.
• Extreme characters are especially useful for considering values, attitudes, emotions, and social meanings that ordinary personas may underplay.

Examples

• A toy revolver was relabelled as an appointment manager: bullets became appointments, rotating the cylinder suggested scrolling, firing at someone suggested making an appointment, and emptying bullets suggested cancelling appointments.
• The drugsdealer concept used rings as appointment objects, with finger placement indicating importance and separable ring parts supporting delegated tasks.
• The Pope concept used a digital pen and emotional inkwells; the pen stopped writing leisure-related appointments when formal duties were too neglected.
• The polyandrous twenty-year-old concept used a folding appointment fan with public and private modes to manage privacy and compare social appointments.