Methodologies for evaluating the affective experience of a mediated interaction

Introduction An increasing number of digital devices seeks to smoothly link people involved in joint activities, be it in professional or domestic settings. These devices make possible the simultaneous transfer of speeches, texts and pictures as resources for the communication between users. Unfortunately in many cases the use of these artefacts happens to be quite unsuccessful and frustating for the users. These limitations can be explained in cognitive terms, stressing the ineffective coupling between individual and collective demands and the properties of the system. But these weaknesses can also, and maybe above all, be related with the affective field. Taking into account the affective dimension of the interaction becomes therefore a major issue for the designers of these devices (Norman 2004).