Emotion by Design: How Gestural Interfaces Shape Consumer Experience and Choice

How consumers physically interact with digital interfaces can fundamentally shape how they feel and what they choose. Drawing on Norman’s “emotion design” framework in human computer interaction (HCI) and appraisal theories of emotion, the current research examines how gestural control of haptic interfaces—the physical movements required to operate haptic devices—influences consumer choice. Across six studies, we demonstrate that an enhanced gestural range of motion (e.g., drag-and-drop vs. mere taps on a screen) evokes more positive sensorimotor experiences, which in turn increase consumers’ preference for hedonic options. This effect is amplified when gestural correspondence (i.e., the intuitiveness and mapping of the gestural motion to the physical world) is high and is attenuated when using non-haptic interfaces that decouple the physical action from the digital target. We show that these findings extend to various field settings, including in-store environments and social media advertising using gesture-controlled ads. These findings offer a new perspective on how gesture-controlled technologies shape the consumer experience and have managerial implications across application domains, including e-commerce, in-store experiences, and mobile advertising