Interactive products and users: Exploring the product-love relationship

This exploratory research examined product love shared between users and interactive products. The goals of the research were: (1) to empirically explore in what ways the product-love relationship is manifested over time; (2) to understand what emotions constitute product love; (3) to identify whether there is any change of the emotion elicited and its intensity over time; and (4) to examine the roles of design factors play in initiating and sustaining a product-love relationship.;A mixed methods design, blending both qualitative and quantitative approaches, was used. Respondents were recruited both electronically and by using a snowball sampling method. The quantitative approach was through a 45-question survey which was designed to integrate with the Geneva Emotional Wheel (GEW). The survey was followed up by semi-structured interview to gather empirical data to understand respondents' answers to the questions.;The findings of the research were: (1) product love shares a lot of similarity with interpersonal love, which is manifested not only in the phenomena of users' naming, perception of product's growth, and nurturing behaviors, but also in the three components, i.e., intimacy, passion, and commitment; (2) depending on the length of a product-love relationship, product love can become reciprocal, products play different reflective functions, and users experience merges of the selves with products, either in whole or in part; (3) product love is a blend of both positive and negative emotion, which is an overall experiential appraisal results, typically represented as positive emotions of high intensity and negative emotions of low intensity. What emotions elicited and their intensity levels change, depending on the stage of a product-love relationship; and (4) the importance of design factors change in a product-love relationship. Visual qualities and functional capacities of interactive products are generally the triggers that make people fall in love with products. As a product-love relationship evolves, it is the experiential quality of user interaction that plays a huge role in sustaining the product love. In addition, the reoccurring pleasure retrieved or recalled from the past experiences may contribute to the product love users attest to.