Abstract
User Experience (UX) is a concept based on the human-product interaction. An increase of UX studies in the Human-Computer interaction (HCI) field was observed in the last decade. Empirical studies based their experimental activity on HCI products, which are characterized by two components: Software and intangible (digital interfaces and web apps) and Hardware and physical (devices). Trough an explorative study, the authors propose a research direction to compares UX studies targeting software and hardware components of HCI products. A preliminary sample of papers was considered. The authors collected contributions where UX in HCI design is investigated through case studies involving devices with software and hardware components. Objectives, methods, and tools of each case study were compared. It emerged that complex systems require both quantitative and qualitative analysis approaches, as the wide variety of tools for data acquisition and processing show. Since Hardware components are more closely related to products such as consumer goods and engineering products, it is possible that methods and tools used to study hardware components could also be applicable to other physical and tangible products, i.e., the main reference for product, engineering, and mechanical design.