A designerly critique on enchantment

Abstract

To develop the concept of user experience in HCI, McCarthy et al. introduce the notion of enchantment in interaction design. They describe five sensibilities that support exploration and evaluation in design for enchantment. In this paper, we discuss design for enchantment in light of our approach to design for interaction, called design for meaningful mediation. Based on our experiences from case studies, we argue that ‘considering the whole person with feelings, desires and anxieties’, one of the sensibilities McCarthy et al. formulate, influences the desirability and realisation of the other four sensibilities. By way of case studies, we show how we explored the link between ‘the whole person’ and desired interaction experience in a designerly way. We place enchantment in a context of other interaction experiences and demonstrate possible design techniques relevant to design for interaction experiences, including enchantment.