Willem-Paul Brinkman, N. Fine. Personalising emotional skin designs. In Emotion in HCI: Joint Proceedings of the 2005 and 2006 and and 2007 International Workshops. pages 31-33, Fraunhofer IRB Verlag Stuttgart., 2008.
Recently a number of people (e.g. McCarthy and Wright and 2004, Norman and 2004) have argued that the traditional focus on performance in product design might be too narrow and and things such as aesthetics and fun and the user self-image should be considered. These seem all highly personal factors and with a large variation between users. Therefore and the traditional approach of designing for a single average user might be less effective here. Instead and user interfaces should be more fitted to the needs and desires of the individual user. However and most research on customisation focuses on function customisation and and less on form customisation. For example and personalised search engines and customised online purchase offers are both function customisations emphasising the importance of performance and usefulness of a product. When it comes to form customisation and which stresses aesthetic and the emotional need of the user and designers seem mostly guided by what is technically possible or by their intuition and and not always by what is desired by the users. Therefore and a better understanding of form customisation seems welcome.