'User = human' is too small a box. Babies, pets, caregivers and even algorithms are users too. Here is a categorization that fits them all.
The traditional ‘user = human end-user’ model misses real users: a baby who rejects a pacifier, the parent who bought it, a pet, or a search algorithm crawling a site. This proposal treats users as actors/entities (X Entities) with different roles and perception levels, organized by User Affinity into two branches: Direct Experience Users (DEU), who interact directly, and Indirect Experience Users (IEU), whose experience comes from someone else’s. Each splits into conscious and unconscious, giving four categories: CDEU, UDEU (I-users), CIEU (operant users, after Skinner) and UIEU (internalized users, after Vygotsky).
Key takeaways
- The 'user = human' concept and classic HCI are too narrow for real research.
- Users can be human, animal or cybernetic (AI, ML, robots, IoT crawlers), all measurable with scientific methods.
- User Affinity splits users into Direct (DEU) and Indirect (IEU) Experience Users.
- Each branch has conscious and unconscious variants, giving four categories.
- This categorization is the groundwork for applying XCI/XMI and Quantum UX.
Why 'user = human' breaks down
Buy a pacifier you find attractive, well made and affordable, give it to your baby, and the baby rejects it instantly, then cries for a different one. All the UX and marketing effort ignored the actual user. So who is the user: the parent who chose and paid, or the baby who decides success or failure? Realistically, both. The same holds for a pet (the dog is the user; the owner gets indirect satisfaction) and, less obviously, for machines: a search engine’s algorithm crawling your server is a cyber-entity interacting with another cyber-entity, an XCI/XMI interaction you can measure like any UX study.
User Affinity: the two branches
Instead of seeing users only as end-users, treat them as actors with roles and perception levels. User Affinity splits into Direct Experience Users (DEU), who have direct contact with the object or service, and Indirect Experience Users (IEU), who derive their experience from another original user’s. Both can be conscious or unconscious.
| Category | Who they are | Also called |
|---|---|---|
| CDEU: Conscious Direct | Fully aware of interacting directly with the object or service; can articulate their experience and give feedback. | Original user |
| UDEU: Unconscious Direct | Has a direct experience but doesn’t perceive it as intentional design; attributes sensations to chance or psycho-physical states. | I-user (inconscious) |
| CIEU: Conscious Indirect | Aware their experience is shaped by another’s, e.g. a parent whose satisfaction depends on the baby’s reaction to a pacifier. | Operant user (Skinner) |
| UIEU: Unconscious Indirect | Experience shaped by another’s without realizing it’s designed, e.g. a shopper who benefits from a good POS system that speeds up the cashier, without noticing. | Internalized user (Vygotsky) |
The stronger the measurable variables of the original user’s experience, the greater the indirect experience derived from it. The ‘operant user’ borrows from B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning; the ‘internalized user’ from Lev Vygotsky’s concept of internalization, both pillars of the behavioral and learning psychology behind user research.
Users are not only end-users. They are actors and entities filling different roles, with different levels of perception and interaction.
The User Affinity model
Yes. Babies and pets interact with products and show measurable preferences and satisfaction, even if their interaction is mediated by a caregiver or owner who is also a user.
Yes. Search crawlers, recommendation engines, robots and IoT devices interact with systems as cyber-entities, an XCI/XMI interaction that can be researched like any UX study.
A Direct Experience User (DEU) interacts directly with the object or service. An Indirect Experience User (IEU) derives their experience from another original user’s interaction.
CDEU (conscious direct), UDEU (unconscious direct / I-user), CIEU (conscious indirect / operant user) and UIEU (unconscious indirect / internalized user).
Because the ‘user = human end-user’ model can’t represent indirect, unconscious or non-human users, which is essential for applying XCI/XMI and Quantum UX.
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