Trevor van Gorp
April 11 11:45AM
Over the last few years, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow has become
a popular topic within design circles. Many designers and information
architects now view the psychological state of flow as a desirable goal for the
end users of the products and interfaces they create. User experience
professionals now have a clear target around which to center their design
efforts.
Although the characteristics of the flow experience are well defined in
psychological circles, there are a number of questions that have not been
addressed with regard to this psychological state.
• How do users’ emotional states affect the creation of flow?
• What are the differences between novice and experienced users when it come
to
creating flow?
• How do differences in the goals (i.e. experiential vs. goal directed) of
users affect the creation of flow?
This presentation will explore the role of emotions in determining the creation
of flow. This includes the role that emotional states play in affecting how we
focus attention, learn, process and use information. The creation of flow is
ultimately determined by a combination of our individual skill levels, the
challenge provided by the task at hand, and the level of motivation we have to
complete that task.
Understanding how to enhance users’ experiences by creating flow states
allows us to tailor the design of products, websites and software to different
user groups with different levels of skill. This is important because products
that can elicit flow tend to create higher levels of loyalty amongst users.
This session is appropriate for all audience levels and will appeal to IAs &
user experience designers looking to improve their understanding of designing
for flow, how emotions affect the creation of flow and how different user goals
affect flow.
The audience will learn about the underlying causes, characteristics and
consequences of flow. They will also learn how flow is related to emotional
design, and how to take user goals into consideration when designing for flow.