I have now submitted my dissertation. Its been a long but fun journey. I would like to thank my six participants and Andy Bardill for help focusing down the topic. You can Dowload it here (1.9MB PDF)

The dissertation starts with a broad overview of emotional and experience design, this leads into my research area of Social communication. To test the academic theories of design in design. The end result is this practical design process which can be used during product design brief creation in an increasing complex world. Final Framework Ben Arent

ABSTRACT-

In the last seven years, the understanding of product pleasure has greatly increased in academia. Currently the discussion has extended beyond just pleasure and has included the complete experience. While these frameworks exist there is little empirical research that this is what the consumers want, especially within an increasing complex world.

Current technologies have created a plethora of new social methods of interaction that have been activity adopted by the late majority. This fundamental shift in product adoption means traditional late adapters have embraced new products and services faster than traditional early adopters. This paradox of adoption is still under designed for, as current manufactures still don’t completely understand their users.

This dissertation will use a triangulation of user centered design methods focusing on the late majority. Comparing the results against a range of hypothesizes focusing on overall experiences and product adoption. The resulting research combines experience topologies with practical process, to create an iterative design framework that could be used to create better framed briefs.