Emotions, experiences and usability in real-life mobile phone use

Positive emotional experiences with an interactive product are assumed to lead to good user experience and, ultimately, to product success. However, the path from emotional experiences to product evaluation may not be direct, as emotions fluctuate over time, and some experiences are easier to recall than others. In this study, we examined emotions and experience episodes during real-life mobile phone use over a five-month period. The goal is to understand how emotions and memories are related to overall evaluation of a product: usability, user experience and behavioral intentions. The results show that both emotions and how people remember them had strong unique roles in the overall evaluation of the product. Positive emotions were mostly related to good user experience and negative emotions to low usability. In the early stages of use, users overestimated their positive emotions and seemed to focus on user experience, the importance of usability increased over time.