Towards Customized Emotional Design: an Explorative Study of User Personality and User Interface Skin Preferences Willem-Paul Brinkman Nick Fine

Topics  Research Motivation  Study 1: Explorative study into personality and skin preferences  Study 2: Exploring initial findings with a specific set of skins  Conclusions & Future Research

Research Motivation Why considering emotion in design? “First, someone who is relaxed, happy, in a pleasant mood, is more creative, more able to overlook and cope with minor problems with a device - especially if it’s fun to work with….Second, when people are anxious, they are more focused, …, designer must pay special attention to ensure that all the information required to do the task is continually at hand, readily visible, with clear and unambiguous feedback about the operations that the device is performing.” (Norman, 2004, p.26)

Research Motivation Emotion, Aesthetics, Fun, Self-image all Highly Personal Segmenting user population?

Research Motivation Segmentation based on:  Personality traits  Gender  Age  etc  Personality traits: “dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions” (McCrae and Costa, 2003)  Example of dimensions of individual differences are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness.

Research Motivation Segmentation for customized user interfaces, e.g. with skinning technology

Research Motivation Skinning properties Traits Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness Colour Font ThemeStyle

Study 1: Method  Focus on skin selection  Often users scan through a list of potential skins and select one  Selection is less based on interaction experience, but more on previous knowledge, taste and expectation.

Study 1: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Procedure  Windows Media Player  Randomly selected 61 skins from set of 178 downloaded from the internet  4 screen shots of each skin

Study 1: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Procedure  Intention of selecting a specific type of skin “I would try this skin on my media player”  BIS/BAS scales: Motivation towards something desirable and undesirable (Carver and White, 1994)  IPIP-NEO Big-5 Model: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (Buchanan, Johnson, and Goldberg, 2005). unlikelylikely

Study 1: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Procedure  99 students and staff of School Computing, Information Systems, and Mathematics (Brunel University)  58 males, 35 females, 6 unspecified  Age between 18 and 52 years. Median 20 years

Study 1: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Procedure  Class Room Setting  Slides projected on large screen  Participants were first show complete set (reduce learning effect)  Next, set was shown again and participants rate each skin Example

Skin 1

DefaultRadio VideoCD / MP3 SKIN 1

I would try this skin on my media player. UnlikelyLikely Please rate the statement for the previous skin (1)

Skin 2

DefaultRadio VideoCD / MP3 SKIN 2

I would try this skin on my media player. UnlikelyLikely Please rate the statement for the previous skin (2)

Study 1: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Procedure  Skins shown in sets of 10  Afterwards participants completed BIS/BAS scale (24 questions)  Done in the class room  Participants were asked to complete IPIP-NEO inventory online and return the results afterwards  120 questions  Only 17 participants return results

Study 1: Results Factor Analysis Did participants use limited number of dimensions to rate the skins?  Standardized Skin rating: z-score transformation per participant  Principal component as factor extraction method  19 components explaining 0.74 of overall variance  Examining varimax rotated component matrix  No clear interpretation of components

Study 1: Results Correlation with Gender Females were more in favour of : Charming, ‘cute’ characters

Study 1: Results Females were more in favour of : Blue Purple Bright Colour Correlation with Gender

Study 1: Results Males were more in favour of : Muscular themes Correlation with Gender

Study 1: Results Males were more in favour of : Large or complex Correlation with Gender

Study 1: Results Correlation with BIS/BAS BAS: Drive Participants more driven by pursuit of desired goals : Over-powering, dark vs light or bright Participants less driven by pursuit of desired goals :

Study 1: Results Correlation with BIS/BAS BIS High on motivation of avoiding undesirable situations : Blue Low on motivation of avoiding undesirable situations :

Study 1: Results Correlation with IPIP- NEO Similarity- Attraction Participants select skins with represent similar personalities (adoption of Nass and Reeves’ hypothesis) friendliness Not-cheerfulness Not-neuroticism, Not-vulnerability

Study 1: Results Correlation with IPIP- NEO Similarity- Attraction Participants select skins with represent similar personalities (adoption of Nass and Reeves’ hypothesis) Depression, Self- consciousness (neuroticism) Immoderation, excitement-seeking

Study 1: Results Correlation with IPIP- NEO Colour? Extraversion, assertiveness Gregariousness, not- anxiety, not-anger Neuroticism, anxiety Not-assertiveness Not-activity level

Study 1: Conclusions and Limitations  Potentially links such as  gender and skin themes  Personality and colour  Similarity-attraction hypothesis  Very Preliminary Conclusions  Post-hoc analysis (large number of correlations examined)  Small sample size (IPIP-NEO)  Interpretation very subjective and lot of confounding variables

Study 2: Method  Material  Measures  Participants Selecting or designing 4 skins for 17 categories 1.Blue skins 2.Purple/violet skins 3.Grey skins 4.Bright skins 5.Colourful skins 6.Large, dark skins 7.Small skins 8.Medium size, squared shape skins 9.Complex interaction skins 10.Small and friendly creature 11.Friendly, charming ‘baby’ character 12.Humoristic skins 13.Action theme skins 14.Predator skins 15.Scary skins 16.Mildly scary skins 17.Standard skins

Study 2: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  Skins shown in sets of 17  Afterwards participants completed:  reduced version of BIS/BAS scale (15 questions)  reduced version IPIP-NEO (48) questions (only extraversion and neuroticism)

Study 2: Method  Material  Measures  Participants  130 Undergraduates Computer science and Information System course  83 male, 44 female, and 3 unspecified  Age: between 18 and 49 years, median 21 years.

Study 2: Results Designing for similarity or diversity  Highest mean rating (4.85)  25% participants gave the skin their highest rating  mean rating (4.84)  35% participants gave the skin their highest rating

Study 2: Results  Analysing category rating  Internal consistency Positive correlations between rating within skin categories 1.Blue skins 2.Purple/violet skins 3.Grey skins 4.Bright skins 5.Colourful skins 6.Large, dark skins 7.Small skins 8.Medium size, squared shape skins 9.Complex interaction skins 10.Small and friendly creature 11.Friendly, charming ‘baby’ character 12.Humoristic skins 13.Action theme skins 14.Predator skins 15.Scary skins 16.Mildly scary skins 17.Standard skins

Study 2: Results Correlation with age Older participants were more in favour of Grey skins Younger participants were more in favour of humoristic skins

Study 2: Results Correlation with gender Female participants were more in favour of Friendly, charming ‘baby’ character Small and friendly creature

Study 2: Results Correlation with gender Males were more in favour of Small skins Predator skins Medium size, squared shape skins Scary skins

Study 2: Results BIS scale High on motivation of avoiding undesirable situations : Colourful skins Friendly, charming ‘baby’ characters

Study 2: Results Similarity- attraction Colourful skins negative correlation with gregariousness Action theme positive correlations cheerfulness Humoristic theme positive correlation cheerfulness, negative correlation depression

Study 2: Results Colour Same skin, only differs in colour

Study 2: Results Colour Regression lines for skin rating from BAS-Drive scale MANCOVA with repeated measures Dependent variable: skin rating Independent variable between-subjects : (covariates) age, and personality scales; Gender Within-subjects: skin colour Significant two-way interaction effect between colour and BAS-Drive

Study 2: Conclusions and limitations  Again found links such as  gender and skin themes  Personality and colour  Similarity-attraction hypothesis  Still Very Preliminary Conclusions  Interpretation skins is still subjective (observers interpretation)

Future work  Repeat study  Participants also rating skins on “skin dimensions” such “how humoristic would you rate this skin?”  Design new skins specific for categories  Systematic manipulation of skins  Extending the model

Future work User Personality Selecting a specific type of skin Current model However, correlations are relatively small!

Future work Attitude towards selecting a specific skin type Subjective Norm Relative importance Adoption of Theory of Planned Control (Ajzen, 1985) Intention of selecting a specific type of skin User Task User Personality Perceived Control

Questions Thanks for your attention