research questions related to fun...

In my professional career as a R&D head and also in my personal life I have seen many services, products, systems being developed. Many enjoy great goal-orientation and sometimes even a decent user interface; yet, they suffer from poor usage - why? Some activities, despite being useful, are considered boring and not enjoyed by the consumer. Schools, lectures, classical art are good examples of this. Most people consider these items boring. In contrast, a game, a toy, a silly song or a action thriller movie are often enjoyed and relished. Why? ... this lead me to ask the following questions (which I consider to be my initial drive for research):

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•How do we take something that is considered boring and convert it to fun?

–Are there some basic principles we can apply to make this happen?

–Are the principles universals or specific?

–How can they be applied to corporate outputs like marketing, software products, hardware products, services etc.

–How does “gamification” fit into this?

–How does “funware” fit into this?

•Boring:

–What constitutes Boring?

–How do we define it?

–How do we know when somebody is bored?

–Is there a cognitive model for it?

•Fun:

–What constitutes fun?

–How do we define it?

–How do we know when somebody is having fun?

–Is there a cognitive model for it?

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Sai Gollapudi