Conceptualizing Design Principles for Supporting Users' Knowledge Formation Process in Interaction

In various contexts of interaction, users should creatively adjust their product/system use for fully attaining their goals and ensuring satisfactory experiences. To do so, users need to learn how to apply their problem-solving knowledge in the task domain (i.e. domain knowledge). This research proposes a new perspective on users' knowledge formation processes in user-system interaction, emphasizing the significance of users' domain knowledge for better quality of user-system interaction. In order for users to fully achieve their goals and higher-level satisfaction, they need to obtain knowledge of problem-solving mechanisms in the task domain. Therefore, in design practices, product/system UI designers should consider how to develop a product/system that can help users acquire and manipulate domain knowledge through interaction. This paper first proposes a model of users’ knowledge formation cycle in user-system interaction. Then, some principles for supporting the cycle are suggested in three categories based on literature surveys: principles for motivating knowledge acquisition, for supporting knowledge acquisition, and for supporting meta-knowledge acquisition.