Understanding how users perceive and evaluate the quality of interactive products is a major design challenge. However, user judgments may vary substantially across different individuals, and even a single individual may develop different views over multiple uses of the product in various contexts. So, how does one manage to effectively elicit and integrate such idiosyncratic product perceptions developed over time?

Through the presentation of a number of experimental studies, this book introduces and elaborates on concepts and methods that may be used for capturing dynamic user experience. The author successfully argues that such empirical knowledge can provide rich insights into what determines product quality and even guide the formation of design goals of similar artifacts in similar contexts.

The book is actually a report of the author’s research explorations. Each chapter sets specific goals intended to highlight different aspects related to modeling, measuring, and analyzing user experience over time. The chapters may be read independently, and the sense that the passage through chapters is sometimes less than seamless does not reduce the comprehensiveness of the book. The author effectively lays out the potential benefits, challenges, and limitations related to subjective evaluation of interactive products.

Overall, this book is a constructive source of information for both novice and experienced researchers in the field of human-computer interaction, as well as for usability practitioners and designers of interactive products.