User Experience Over Time - Modeling Users' Experiences with Interactive Systems - page 65

4.4 Study 2

Study 1 provides some evidence for the point of view that prolonged experiences
with products can differ substantially from initial experiences in terms of the way
that different product qualities relate to each other.
The question that was raised then was: what causes these changes? Can we de-
scribe the adoption of a product in terms of distinct phases? And what qualities
would dominate each of these phases? While longitudinal studies on product adop-
tion are scarce in the field of HCI, much work has been performed in the field of
cultural studies of technology (Du Gay et al., 1997; Silverstone and Haddon, 1996),
trying to understand how technology is being adopted and incorporated in specific
cultures. We agree with McCarthy and Wright (2004) that cultural studies have a
tendency to downplay the role and diversity of individual experience, yet, we be-
lieve that much can be learned from examining the relevance of cultural studies
frameworks for the study of user experience.
A promising framework for the study of prolonged user experiences is the one
from Silverstone and Haddon (1996) on the dimensions of adoption. They suggested
three dimensions, but also moments, in the process of technology adoption: com-
modification , appropriation and conversion . Commodification, they argued, refers
to all activities from both producers and users that result in specific claims for a
function and an identity for a new product. As users participate in the commodifica-
tion process, they form expectations about ways in which the product could become
relevant to their lives. In appropriation, users accept enough of the relevance of the
product and they gradually incorporate it into their life routines. Finally, in conver-
sion, users accept the product as part of their self-identity and employ it in their
social interactions.
Silverstone and Haddon's framework, however, approach product adoption from
a cultural and macro-temporal perspective, thus undermining the details that de-
scribe how individuals' experiences develop over time. For instance, commodifica-
tion is conceived as an iterative process where both users and producers make claims
for new functions, eventually resulting in new products in the market. They are less
concerned about how expectations impact users' experience with a product. Next,
how exactly does appropriation happen? As it will become evident later, we distin-
guish between two aspects of appropriation, namely orientation and incorporation.
This study, inspired by the framework of Silverstone and Haddon (1996), uses
the iPhone to validate distinct phases in users' experience, and understand what
differentiates them, how users' experience changes across these phases, and how
this impacts users' evaluative judgments about the product. More specifically, it
addresses the following questions:

1. Can users' experiences be articulated in distinct phases in the adoption of the
product?
2. What motivates the transition across these phases?
3. How does each phase contribute to the overall perceived quality of the product?