User-Experience from an Inference Perspective

In many situations, people make judgments on the basis of incomplete information, inferring unavailable attributes from available ones. These inference processes may also well operate when judgments about a product’s user-experience are made. To examine this, an inference model of user-experience, based on Hassenzahl and Monk’s [2010], was explored in three studies using Web sites. All studies supported the model’s predictions and its stability, with hands-on experience, different products, and different usage modes (action mode versus goal mode). Within a unified framework of judgment as inference [Kruglanski et al. 2007], our approach allows for the integration of the effects of a wide range of information sources on judgments of user-experience.