Based on the results of two researching stages, some findings were made about the sharing of show-watching. The findings can be sorted into several themes that allow designers who design co-experience platforms to know more about what users need and what kind of design techniques or elements would gain better responses and acceptance for them.
4.4.1 Purpose of attending the show
People attended shows because of their primary, personal interests and also because they were influenced by peers. Here, people could be separated into three types of users.
The first type of people are those who are interested in shows would take the initiative to search for interesting shows. Since they have experiences of watching shows in the past, their expectations toward the latest show may be a simple glance through the introduction or to relax and release the pressure. The second type is the one with friends interested in watching shows. They may be invited by their friends or family members to watch the show together or recommended by them and go see it someday. The third type of people is the one who accidentally run into the show, and they go to the show just for fun. For example: an outdoor show encountered by travelers.
The objectives they want to achieve when sharing experience are as follows:
1. growth with others
Through watching the show with family or friends, they got the sense of enjoyment and ideas from it. After sharing to each other, they would feel like growing together with others.
2. enhance communication
Except for the sense of growth, they felt like they enhanced their communication with friends and family, especially with kids. Through the discussion, they understand each other more.
3. enjoy the happiness of sharing
Based on the interview, most informants enjoy sharing with friends or family members.
People like to share “good news” with friends and they look forward to gain feedback at the same time. With sharing to each other, they got the simple happiness from it.
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4.4.2 Assistance: to increase inclination
New, inventive designs usually have strong appeals to motivate people into using; for example, something that is interesting, some artifacts that can be used as souvenirs, or a chance to meet new friends----these are appeals.
1. interesting interaction
“Interesting” was an element repeatedly mentioned in the three prototypes. Some informants had pointed out that they like to use certain platform simply because it is like an amusement park, while others keep the habit just to play games. In other words, entertainments provided by the platform also attract them to use it continuously.
2. enhancing social ties
Specifically, to make users feel interested, the product itself or the interface is not the only element to look after, social interaction must be considered as well.
In prototype A, informant B mentioned:
“It would be such an exciting and interesting experience if there is a person I don’t know, and one day I meet him through the platform! It feels like we are having a weak but fantastic connection by some coincidence.”
In prototype C, informant A also mentioned:
“It would be very fascinating if I can share the live atmosphere to my friends far away!”
According to the interview, we know that people prefer using something with entertaining aspects to enhance their social connection at the same time, with friends or even someone they barely know.
3. abundant records
People like to record their memory through artifacts and by means of digital camera or words. Except recording their own experience, sharing memories with others and getting feedbacks of various colorful memories of others is also an attractive appeal for users.
4. unique information and artifacts Informant G mentioned:
“The bell can only be found in this place so I would keep it as a unique souvenir.”
And informant F mentioned:
“The specific information about the shows in East-Gate may attract me to come here and get the information I want to know”
Here “unique” means you can acquire the information or artifacts exclusively in East-Gate whew there are distinguishing features about the local spot. For instance, the bell which cheers and encourages performers is the artifact you can get in East Gate. You won’t see it elsewhere and it becomes one of the unique and commemorative products of East-Gate.
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4.4.3 Resistance: to block inclination
In the meanwhile, there are some resistances that users concerned about, such as privacy problem or the gap between the design and their habits in the past.
1. Privacy
When people share their experience, they worry about personal privacy. For example, informant B mentioned:
“When I share my photos on the photo-sharing platform, I will choose photos that include more than just me…”
Some informants also mentioned that they don’t want to post their blogs publicly. For those who are willing to share, they still withhold much of their self-information.
2. Personality
Shyness and laziness are two deciding personality that may lower one’s willing to share his or her emotions. People of these kinds are hardly influenced by surrounding atmospheres.
3. Habits acquired in the past
Some informants mentioned that they don’t want to leave the message on the photo-sharing platform because they had gained used to viewing real photos from past experiences. Some informants said that they won’t bring the East-Gate passport, because they were used to take a walk in East-Gate with only a wallet in the pocket.
4.4.4 Expectation to the platform
From users’ expectations toward the platform, we discovered some aspects users emphasized:
1. Instantaneity
“I hope I can leave some messages or draw something at once…”
“I love sharing emotions I feel at the moment because the sharing strengthens the atmosphere immediately…”
Sharing emotions or impressions instantly seems to be the most direct way for users and they expect it inwardly as well.
2. Interesting interactions
“It can be a voting system so that we can know whose photo is the most popular one for today…”
“It can become a public fans club. I can make new friends who love the same singer as I do!...”
Users expect more interesting interactions upon sharing experiences. Besides, they also expect it to be game-like. Presumably, it would be more fascinating to have certain competitions or opportunities to form a relationship with others.
3. Memory preservations
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People desired to preserve personal memories by recording videos and words. Different media record different memories. As informant E said “videos and words preserve different memories with different meanings.” Either way, people expect to record the experiences and preserve them because they want to keep their valuable memories safe.
4. User-friendliness
Except for interesting interactions, users also expect the platform to be easy and convenient in terms of using. The way of giving feedbacks or sharing photos should be as easy as possible. Moreover, they hope to find information showing on the platform quickly without difficulty.
5. Narrative
In the photo-sharing platform, some informants expect that the platform has some narrative. He mentioned that:
“If I can see the photos taken in different time, I can see the time is flowing…If I saw myself in other’s photos, I would feel that the world is so small and the feeling would be very special…”. They expect something narrative so that they could get the surprise from discovering the coincident.
4.4.5 Opinions about co-experience
When the activity of watching show was brought up to share, experiences would definitely bring user happiness. In addition, we found that there are “happiness from reviewing the experiences” and “happiness from exchanging their experiences” from the interview.
“Every time I review what I wrote in the past, I felt differently about it…”
“I want to record some videos because I think it would be fun to see myself on the video afterwards…”
Moreover, happiness comes from certain psychological expectations. Everyone expects to get compliments about their devotions, points of view from others, personal records, and the experience of social interactions.
“To know that I have common experience with someone I don’t know would be very nice! I don’t really want to know who he is, but I still feel happy because it seems like we are sharing a secret…”
These expectations are not obvious, but they represent people’s eagerness to interact with others in depth through co-experiences.
Finally, the motivating force of constant sharing makes co-experience a continuous cycle. People share their good experience and look forward to see other’s feedback.
Whenever they get feedbacks or realize the influence they have on others, the sense of accomplishment will motivate them to share more.
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- Chapter 5 - DISCUSSIONS
Through this research, what users’ think about co-experience was exposed. In this chapter, we want to discuss the delicate thoughts in users’ mind in co-experience and to propose some design techniques for designers to follow up. In the principles of interaction designs, there exist some differences. There are several main ideas to be discussed; “the role of different design techniques”, “the mental expectation”, “the mental worry”, and
“the co-experience process”,. Furthermore, the co-experience model was built up. In addition, design suggestions were proposed to improve co-experience design.