The importance of emotions in service and product design is well known. Despite this, however, it is still not very well understood how users' emotions can be incorporated in a product or service lifecycle. In this paper, we argue that this gap is due to a lack of a methodological framework for an effective investigation of the emotional response of persons when using products and services. Indeed, the emotional response of users is generally investigated by means of methods (e.g., surveys) that are not effective for this purpose. In our view, Virtual Reality (VR) technologies represent the perfect medium to evoke and recognize users' emotional response, as well as to prototype products and services (and, for the latter, even deliver them). In this paper, we first provide our definition of emotion-driven services, and then we propose a novel methodological framework, referred to as the Virtual-Reality-Based Emotion-Elicitation-Emotion-Recognition loop (VEE-loop), that can be exploited to realize it. Specifically, the VEE-loop consists in a continuous monitoring of users' emotions, which are then provided to service designers as an implicit users' feedback. This information is used to dynamically change the content of the VR environment (VE), until the desired affective state is solicited. Finally, we discuss issues and opportunities of this VEE-loop, and we also present potential applications of the VEE-loop in research and in various application areas.

中文翻译：

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虚拟情感循环：通过虚拟现实转向情感驱动的服务

情感在服务和产品设计中的重要性是众所周知的。但是，尽管如此，仍然还没有很好地理解如何将用户的情感融入产品或服务的生命周期中。在本文中，我们认为这种差距是由于缺乏有效调查人在使用产品和服务时的情感反应的方法论框架所致。实际上，通常通过对于该目的无效的方法（例如，调查）来调查用户的情绪反应。我们认为，虚拟现实（VR）技术是唤起和识别用户情感反应以及原型产品和服务（并为后者甚至提供它们）的理想媒介。在本文中，我们首先提供了情感驱动服务的定义，然后我们提出了一种新颖的方法框架，称为基于虚拟现实的情绪-激发-情绪-识别循环（VEE-loop），可以用来实现该框架。具体地说，VEE循环包括对用户情绪的连续监视，然后将其作为隐式用户反馈提供给服务设计人员。此信息用于动态更改VR环境（VE）的内容，直到请求所需的情感状态为止。最后，我们讨论了该VEE循环的问题和机遇，并且还介绍了VEE循环在研究和各个应用领域中的潜在应用。VEE循环包括对用户情绪的连续监控，然后将其作为隐式用户反馈提供给服务设计人员。此信息用于动态更改VR环境（VE）的内容，直到请求所需的情感状态为止。最后，我们讨论了该VEE循环的问题和机遇，并且还介绍了VEE循环在研究和各个应用领域中的潜在应用。VEE循环包括对用户情绪的连续监控，然后将其作为隐式用户反馈提供给服务设计人员。此信息用于动态更改VR环境（VE）的内容，直到请求所需的情感状态为止。最后，我们讨论了该VEE循环的问题和机遇，并且还介绍了VEE循环在研究和各个应用领域中的潜在应用。