Unpacking social interaction that make us adore
Oskar Juhlin, Yanqing Zhang · 2011
We report on a study of fashionable people"s expressions of opinions on mobile phones in online fashion media, such as blogs and magazines. First, the study contributes to our understanding of the role of pragmatic philosophy, which is now dominating HCI both as a guide for design and as a guide when looking at social practices, in outlining the role of aesthetics in experience design. Fashion practices diverge from this theory, since here aesthetic appearances can be visual, ambiguous and incomplete although it still provides a lot of meanings for people. We argue that our findings should influence the discussion in HCI to consider a less theoretically oriented aesthetic approach, where instead empirical studies get at the forefront. Second, the study provides valuable insight on how we should design mobile experiences to attract more attention from people interested in fashion. Mobile phones, and their services, can for example be designed to relate to the visual appearance of the dressed outfit, or ensemble of a person.