Being There: Exploring the Role of 'Presence' in Designing Engaging Product/System Experiences

Contrary to the perception of connecting people and enhancing and extending the human experience, technology has made us more disconnected from each other and disoriented in our activities. The focus on building technical functionality, coupled with a lack of consideration for different user contexts and circumstances, has affected technology-mediated experiences through incoherent and inappropriate human-product interactions.

The cohesiveness of function, context and action allows for a ‘present’ experience in which users are engaged on a cognitive, physical and psychological level. When there is a lack of cohesion, focus and clarity on the activity is replaced by continued attention on the enabling technology. This loss of ‘presence’ results in inefficient, disjointed and disengaging experiences.

The objectives of this thesis are to 1) describe the loss of ‘presence’ in human-product interactions; 2) explore sources of knowledge relating to ‘presence’ and its applicability to interaction design; 3) present a framework for approaching design for ‘presence’ based on movement; and 4) apply this framework in a design exemplar