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Interaction can be fun, leaving the user with a happy feeling inside. Think of the experience of buying a new car. It smells nice, everything looks clean, and even the feeling of shutting a door has a nice touch to it. All of these things are designed with a positive user experience as the main goal.

When people interact with a machine however, they tolerate things that they would not take from a real person. Vending machines are the perfect example of this: to get the desired product out of the machine, the user has to adapt to the language built into the machine, instead of the machine trying to adapt to the user. The delivery method itself, throwing the item into a bin that is virtually impenetrable, is even more rude.

In my opinion, people should not have to tolerate this. A machine is a designed product, and it can work however the designer wants. A change of focus from effectiveness to ‘affectiveness’ is needed. By redesigning a machine from the perspective of the satisfied customer, I think a better product can be designed.

On this blog you can follow my design explorations for my Master Graduation Project.

- Guus Baggermans – Master Student Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology