Towards Customized Emotional Design: an Explorative Study of User Personality and User Interface Skin Preferences

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

2. 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

3. 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)

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

5. Research Motivation • 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. Segmentation based on: • Personality traits • Gender • Age • etc

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

7. Research Motivation Traits Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Conscientiousness Agreeableness Colour Font Style Theme Skinning properties

8. 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.

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

10. Study 1: Method • 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). • Material • Measures • Participants • Procedure unlikely likely

11. Study 1: Method • 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 • Material • Measures • Participants • Procedure

12. Study 1: Method • 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 • Material • Measures • Participants • Procedure

13. Skin 1

14. Default Radio SKIN 1 Video CD / MP3

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

16. Skin 2

17. Default Radio SKIN 2 Video CD / MP3

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

19. Study 1: Method • 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 • Material • Measures • Participants • Procedure

20. Study 1: Results 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 Factor Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30. 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

31. Study 2: Method Selecting or designing 4 skins for 17 categories • Material • Measures • Participants • Blue skins • Purple/violet skins • Grey skins • Bright skins • Colourful skins • Large, dark skins • Small skins • Medium size, squared shape skins • Complex interaction skins • Small and friendly creature • Friendly, charming ‘baby’ character • Humoristic skins • Action theme skins • Predator skins • Scary skins • Mildly scary skins • Standard skins

32. Study 2: Method • 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) • Material • Measures • Participants

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

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

35. Study 2: Results Positive correlations between rating within skin categories • Analysing category rating • Internal consistency • Blue skins • Purple/violet skins • Grey skins • Bright skins • Colourful skins • Large, dark skins • Small skins • Medium size, squared shape skins • Complex interaction skins • Small and friendly creature • Friendly, charming ‘baby’ character • Humoristic skins • Action theme skins • Predator skins • Scary skins • Mildly scary skins • Standard skins

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

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

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

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

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

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

42. Study 2: Results • 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 Colour Regression lines for skin rating from BAS-Drive scale

43. 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)

44. 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

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

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

47. Questions Thanks for your attention