The impact of Shannon surprise of motion on interest and sustained engagement: exploring the potential of motion design

Abstract

Abstract Incorporating surprises in product design is key to capturing user interest. In design studies that discuss the relationship between the surprise brought by a product’s appearance and the user's emotions, few have focused on the product's motion. In robotics and animation, motion plays a crucial role in engagement and entertainment. This value of motion has the potential to be applied to industrial products that people use in daily life, such as clocks and doors. This study formulates hypotheses on how surprising motion can enhance user interest and sustained engagement. In this study, we quantified the degree of surprise that people perceive from motion using “Shannon surprise” as the prediction error in the brain. Using rotational motion in a linkage mechanism as the experimental stimuli, the results show that motions with moderate Shannon surprise received the highest interest ratings, while greater fluctuations in Shannon surprise significantly increased sustained engagement. These findings support the proposed hypotheses and suggest that a moderate deviation from the motion expected based on the product's structure can be a key factor in stimulating user interest. The insights from this study offer a foundation for product designers and researchers to create engaging, long-lasting product experiences through motion.