The Reverse Engineering of Emotions

Technology is rapidly changing the way we perceive the world. In order to cope with this constant evolution, we reviewed in this paper the approach of Emotional Design, focusing on users' emotional response towards new technologies. We then propose to address Emotional Design from a different perspective, proposing a frame- work in which emotions are correlated through user experience and interaction. We introduce the concept of Reverse Engineering of Emotions, where emotions are considered as the starting points to depict the user experience pattern, and therefore to better design the interaction. We propose to apply the framework in a specific case study concerning the introduction of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology into everyday life. We outline the structure of a serious game through which it would be possible to test some future scenarios of use for this technology and obtain an emotional map thanks to users’ self-reports; then we correlate emotions to user experience, interaction and needs.