Perceiving While Being Perceived

Introduction Electronic devices have undergone an alarming trend related to their aesthetics; the search for appearance and perfection often turns into a loss of sensuous and emotional content. Instead of inviting a sensory and perceptual intimacy and exploration, they frequently signal a rejection of sensuous curiosity and pleasure constraining the user to execute action without the possibility to experience their inherent effect. Modern touch-based interfaces make it possible to directly manipulate information, for example by sliding icons over screens. However, this kind of interaction only slightly involves our senses while not permitting us to perceive the inherent properties of the moved objects. The interface is necessary to interact with technology, but through the interface we touch surfaces without quality, experience spaces without gravity, and exercise actions without forces and their inherent effect. The Aesthetics of Interaction is an emerging field of research that tackles these topics while considering beauty of use and expressivity and meaning in interaction as paramount values for design. Under what conditions can we engage in a meaningful, expressive interaction with an electronic device? How can we distinguish between merely functional objects and aesthetic, poetic interactive objects that can be potential carriers for meaningful experience? Here, " aesthetic " does not refer to a property that is inherent in the object itself, but rather a property of the (inter) action. According to this view, aesthetics is not only related to the form as perceived visually or with the functionality of the system (Fogarty, Forlizzi, & Hudson, 2001), but it is a potential that is released in dialogue as we perceive and act in the world. Consequently, the Aesthetics of Interaction should primarily study action and perception, as well as the intentional affordances that move us to act and interact in the world. The field of Aesthetics of Interaction has reached a certain maturity, partly consolidating the idea that in response to a change in the use of computers and interactive technologies, traditional Human Computer Interaction concepts of usability, efficiency, and productivity have to be enriched with other values such as curiosity, intimacy, emotion and affection. This is done in part through the development of new models and theories that explore many different directions and methods of technological implementation. Given that there seems to be near consensus on the importance of designing interactive systems beyond rational and functional requirements, the ways in which this can be achieved are …