Unite and Engage: Positive Experiences and Work Engagement through Digital Tools
Pinar Simsek Caglar, Hertta Vuorenmaa, Virpi Roto · ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · 2025
As remote collaboration becomes central to contemporary work, it is crucial to understand how digital tools shape user experience (UX) and work engagement. This study examines how product design teams use Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard (OCW), to support collaboration in remote and hybrid work contexts. We identify unity as a core positive experience, consisting of four experiential forms: aggregation, relationality, connection, and fun. Using a sociomaterial lens, we show how these experiences emerge not from tool features alone, but from their entanglement with situated practices. Our contributions are fivefold: we (1) conceptualize unity as a distinct dimension of positive UX; (2) offer an epistemological response to HCI’s call for relational, entangled approaches; (3) trace how unity emerges through sociomaterial configurations; (4) link these experiences to psychological need fulfilment and work engagement; and (5) demonstrate how positive UX arises through ordinary moments of digital work.