Using affect to evaluate user engagement

User Experience (UX) emerged beyond the traditional views of usability to account for users’ emotional response to the aesthetics of an interactive product. This paper outlines the first of a series of studies on User Engagement (UE), a subset of UX, which focuses upon the quality of the within session interactive experience. The aim of this study is to explore affect through the responses to interactive features and how this impacts upon user judgment. Initial findings indicate that websites with more interactive features generate enhanced positive affect within session, which may predominate over a longer term, thus impacting on the overall user experience