Measuring product happiness

The broadening of scope from usability to user experience we have witnessed in the CHI community represents a shift to a more holistic appreciation of how objects and technology can be purposeful to the people that use them. A recent extension of this development is to also pay attention to the question how technology affects the subjective wellbeing or happiness of users. This work in progress paper describes a theoretical model of product attribute categories relevant for product happiness and the development of a scale that aims at measuring the happiness impact of products based on this model. First, the hypothesized model is presented that proposes three different types of product qualities: pragmatic, hedonic and eudaimonic. Second, the development process of a happiness scale is explained. Finally an overview of the future steps is given.