Virtual Customer Environments: IT-Enabled Customer Co-innovation and Value Co-creation - Information Technology and Product Development - page 115

The above three contextual factors in turn imply four components for customer's
co-innovation and value co-creation experience in VCEs: pragmatic experience,
sociability experience, usability experience, and hedonic experience (Nambisan &
Nambisan, 2008).
6.4.1 Pragmatic Experience
Most customers who visit or participate in VCEs do so to acquire information
about a product, its underlying technologies, or its usage. The pragmatic compo-
nent relates to customer's experience in realizing such product-related informational
goals in the VCE (for example, their perception of the quality of information acqui-
sition processes). Note that there are multiple ways for customers to achieve such
goals - interacting with peer customers and company representatives, searching
product knowledge centers, or experimenting with product prototyping tools - and
depending on this, their pragmatic experience would vary.
6.4.2 Sociability Experience
Interactions in a VCE often enable customers to perceive themselves as members
of a group or community, and the underlying social and relational aspects of such
interactions form the sociability experience of the customer. Thus, the sociability
component emphasizes the importance of community dialog and the social policies
(or, rules of engagement) that frame such dialog. The promotion of a shared social
or community identity in VCEs has been shown to contribute to positive sociability
experience. As one customer commented, “I really like the camaraderie and the
shared understanding that has evolved over here [in the VCE] and the constant give-
and-take with these folks have led to some very interesting experiences for me.”
6.4.3 Usability Experience
In a VCE, information technology mediates customer interactions. The quality of
the human-computer interactions defines the usability. Regardless of whether the
technologies used are simple (for example, online discussion boards) or more com-
plex (for example, 3D product simulation tools), the ease with which customers can
interact and perform tasks shapes their overall experience. Thus, it is important to
consider the learning curve to customers.
6.4.4 Hedonic Experience
Customers' interactions in the virtual environment can also be mentally stimulating
or entertaining, and be a source of pleasure and enjoyment. The hedonic component
captures this dimension. It can encompass both the interaction with other customers