# Introduction Good design seems like something that we can aesthetically appreciate. There are 'design classics' like the Bialetti coffee pot, the 1994 [[Swiss Railway Clock]], and the iPod, as well as very many examples of bad design –TV remotes cluttered with meaningless buttons, phone chargers with plugs so heavy they slip from the socket. In the [[first half]] of this paper we argue that, despite their focus on function, current philosophical accounts of [[design aesthetics]] pay an insufficient amount of attention to experiences of [[using designed objects]].  In Section 1 we [[introduce Carlson]] and Parsons’ theory of [[Functional Beauty]] as a means of explaining how function factors into our perceptual appreciation of good design. On their account, a [[designed object]] which looks as if it functions well (looks “fit for function”) then it will, in virtue of this, have aesthetic merit. However, we will argue that a complete aesthetics of design cannot be entirely perception based. A laptop keyboard might look functionally beautiful, but not actually function very well once users begin to type. In particular, a perception-based aesthetics of design cannot accommodate Norman’s idea that “good design is, or at least can be, invisible”. In Section 2, we will examine Forsey's Kant-inspired view according to which [[aesthetic appreciation]] of design is fundamentally a matter of making a judgement about how perfect it is as regards its function. Both perception and use can inform these judgements, meaning that [[this approach]] fares better at explaining how [[invisible design]] might be appreciated.  However, we argue that upon closer inspection Forsey’s account does not do justice to experiences of using objects: when we are deciding whether a [[designed object]] is a good specimen of its type, how well it works will certainly be a factor, but, from an aesthetic perspective, use need [[not just]] be a means of assessment; there are also cases when using an object gives its own aesthetic contribution to the [[aesthetic value]] of [[the object]]. While the aim of this [[first half]] of the paper is to show that user experience has a part to play in the aesthetics of design, the aim of the second is to provide an account of what an aesthetically valuable user experience is. In Section 3, we introduce what we call 'the question of difficulty' and answer it by examining the relationship between aesthetically satisfying actions and their level of difficulty. On the one hand, we use designed objects either to enable certain actions or make them easier: one cannot drive nails without a hammer, a dishwasher makes washing dishes easier and more efficient. On the other, easy actions are not automatically aesthetically satisfying: flicking a light switch or opening a drawer are not typically aesthetically pleasing interactions. Answering this question reveals that Nguyen's agentive aesthetics of games, while illuminating, cannot be transposed wholesale to an aesthetics of user experience. Nguyen's account provides one answer to the question of difficulty in the context of games: aesthetically pleasing gameplay arises when the game's challenges perfectly match and push the player's skills to their limit - a "harmony of capacity". While there are some similarities to aesthetically pleasing interactions with designed objects, aesthetically satisfying object use rarely involves actions that push the user's skills to their limit. In Section 4, we show how a better answer can be found by adapting Montero's account of aesthetic effortlessness. Aesthetic user experience, we argue, is rooted in the sense that one is performing a difficult task with ease. In sum, our aim is to highlight a dimension of design aesthetics that current philosophical theories have either not focussed on at all (in the case of Carlson and Parsons) or not focussed on to the extent to which it merits (in the case of Forsey). However, we are not arguing that use is the only way to appreciate design, suggesting that existing theories should be rejected because they do not in themselves account for it. Rather, we consider the ideas we introduce in what follows as a supplement to existing theories, but an important and hitherto overlooked one. Finally, a note about scope. As we are developing an aesthetic account of design based on use, our focus is on objects that can be used, in the sense that they need to be acted upon by their user to perform their function. What we mean here is roughly the same as Lowe's distinction between utensils and machines. Utensils are objects that require our active engagement to fulfil their function, and include things like knives, bicycles, and keys: if the user takes their hands off a knife it will cease cutting, if they stop pedalling they will slow to a halt. Machines, on the other hand, can perform their function without need for constant contact with the user. An oven keeps heating once it has been turned on, an electric fan will keep spinning until it is switched off. While Lowe's distinction tracks our everyday understanding of utensils and machines for the most part, it does not always do so. We would not normally think of a bookshelf to be a machine, but it will keep your books suspended above the ground without user involvement, and so would come out on Lowe's account as a machine. There are also hybrid cases. The iPod, for example, is utensil-like in that users have to move their finger or thumb around the click wheel to select a track, but machine-like in that once the track is selected music will play without further input. Finally, it seems right to extend the notion of utensil to include objects which we make perceptual use of like signs, maps, books and websites. Although we do not manipulate these objects with our physical bodies, we nevertheless use them to gain information about the world. Our arguments concerning the aesthetics of use will apply to these things as well as knives, bicycles, and iPods. ## 1. The Aesthetics of Invisible Design ### 1. 1 Functional Beauty Perceptual experience, visual experience in particular, plays a very prominent role in philosophical accounts of design. Aesthetic appreciation of objects like the Bialetti and Swiss Railway Clock depends, at least in part, on their visual appearance. However, we will argue in this section that accounts solely based on vision, or even perception more generally, are not the end of the story when it comes to appreciation of design: we should also consider what it is like to use an object. Using an object is of course closely related to the function of the object, and function does play a role in existing accounts of design appreciation. For example, on Carson and Parson's notion of functional beauty, "knowledge of [...] function can play a role in our perception of and hence our aesthetic appreciation of that object"(2008 p. 90). Visually appreciating a Bialetti would therefore differ from visually appreciating a sculpture because knowledge of the coffeepot's practical purpose would feed into one's visual experience, in a manner not possible in the case of sculpture, given its lack of practical purpose. Parsons and Carlson propose three ways function translates into visual aesthetic qualities (2008, pp. 97-100). First, an object can look fit for function, appearing well-suited for its purpose by having expected features plus elements that enhance functionality. This quality emerges in objects like ergonomic office chairs, which look comfortable and supportive through their contoured shapes and upholstery. Second, an object can display elegance through a streamlined appearance, consisting primarily, or entirely of elements that contribute to its function. The original iPod exemplifies this, with its minimalist design consisting solely of screen and scroll wheel. Third, an object can look as though it is capable of performing its function while at the same time  seeming to possess features which get in the way of its working correctly. California lawn chairs create this sort of “visual tension” (ibid. p. 99) with their slender, S-shaped frames that seem too insubstantial to support a person's weight. Functional Beauty places the aesthetics of design firmly in the perceptual realm. Parsons and Carlson write mainly about visual perception, but we can apply similar principles to other senses. Roberts extends this approach to tactile perception, which we'll examine below. Yet a solely perceptual view of design aesthetics may be incomplete. Some aspects of design appreciation are not captured by perception alone. ### 1. 2 Invisible Design We can begin to see this by noting that not all talk of good and bad design is based around the visual appearance of objects. Norman, for example, describes good design as invisible: #### Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable. (2013 p. xi)  It is easy to think of examples of noticeably bad design: capsule coffee machines which make it difficult to remove used capsules, mobile phones made from slippery materials are easy to fumble or drop. Moreover, it is easy to think of cases in which how visually pleasingly functional something looks comes apart from how pleasing it is to use. Apple's butterfly keyboard is an eloquent example of this. In March 2015 Apple released an iteration of its very successful MacBook laptop line. In the accompanying press release Apple emphasised the thinness of the keyboard, describing it as "34 percent thinner"  and "dramatically thinner and highly responsive" than previous models (REF). While the butterfly keyboard did make the laptop thinner, its shallowness meant it was far from highly responsive. As well as facing sustained criticism about its reliability, there were a number of complaints about how it felt to type on such a keyboard, including that it was “uncomfortable for extended typing sessions”, "like typing on a desk that was kind of clicky", and "one of the worst I've had the misfortune to type on".  While the laptops looked great, fit for function and elegantly minimal, these complaints about usability, along with reliability concerns, led to the butterfly keyboard being phased out of Apple’s line up by May 2020. This failure brings out what a perception-based account like Functional Beauty is lacking, as Steve Jobs himself said in 2003: #### “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” ### 1.3 Tactile Functional Beauty How can we appreciate good design if it is invisible? One way is to extend functional beauty, or any perception based account, to perceptual modalities other than vision. If good invisible design cannot be seen, perhaps it can be felt, or heard, or smelled? To illustrate why such a move is insufficient [something] we look at Roberts' recent attempt to extend the functional beauty account to haptic touch. He argues that just as we can see an object as functionally beautiful, we can feel it that way too. He proposes that "an object feels fit for its function when it is perceived through touch as having no contra-standard properties for an object of its type, and as having variable properties, all of which are indicative of a high degree of functionality" (p. 56). Roberts illustrates this with the example of a perfect snowball:  #### a faultless sphere that fits neatly in the palm, with just enough heft and texture for throwing without risk of injury to its victim. Not being unusually large or small, and lacking any embellishment of form (ibid.) These tactile qualities indicate the snowball's fitness for its function, leading to what Roberts calls a "pleasing haptic quality" of "feeling fit for function" (ibid.). He extends this concept to other objects, such as bicycles, where haptic exploration reveals qualities that contribute to functional beauty but remain visually inaccessible (p. 57). For example, touch allows appreciation of a bike frame's lightness or smooth gear operation, indicating its fitness for efficient riding. Haptic touch also permits detection of objects unfit for their function. While users could not visually perceive the butterfly keyboard's design flaws, they could feel them through use. But even if we accept this haptic extension of functional beauty, it doesn't seem to fully capture our experience of invisible design. While Roberts' account helps us understand how we might appreciate the tactile qualities that indicate fitness for function, it still focuses on perceptual properties of the designed object rather than the experience of use itself. Think about using a well-designed smartphone app. The pleasure of using it does not derive from how the screen feels under our fingertips. Or consider driving a finely-tuned sports car. The pleasure of driving it goes beyond the tactile sensations of gripping the steering wheel or pressing the pedals. In both the app case and in the car cases, there's an aesthetic quality to the interaction itself. Finally, there are designed objects which we use without touching them, such as the Swiss Railway Clock or Harry Beck’s London Underground Map. All of this suggests that to fully account for the aesthetics of invisible design, we might need to look beyond perception altogether and consider the aesthetics of use itself. ## 2. The Aesthetics of Use ### 2.1 A Kantian Approach While Parsons and Carlson put perception centre stage, Forsey (2013) develops a Kantian approach to the aesthetics of design, on which perception is one of several factors contributing to aesthetic judgments about designed objects. She draws on Kant's distinction between free and dependent beauty: “The first presupposes no concept of what the object ought to be; the second does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in accordance therewith” (§16,65). While free beauty is judged solely on form, dependent beauty is judged by considering also “the purpose which determines what the thing is to be" (p. 163). Forsey applies this notion of dependent beauty to design, arguing that the aesthetic appreciation of designed objects necessarily involves assessing how well they fulfil their functions, considering both their purpose and how effectively they realise that purpose. Forsey illustrates her application of dependent beauty to design through her analysis of coffee pots.  The aesthetic judgement of a coffee pot involves assessing both its form (such as its shape and material) and how these elements contribute to its function (pp. 181-182). For instance, an octagonal shape might be judged beautiful not just for its visual appeal, but for how it allows easy opening even with wet hands. This exemplifies what Forsey terms "teleological style" - the specific way an object realises its purpose (p. 167). Such judgments go beyond mere visual appreciation, incorporating how well the object works in practice. Forsey argues that many qualities of a designed object can only be fully assessed through use. She illustrates this point in her discussion of judging design excellence: #### This judgement of perfection cannot be made by looking at the coffee-pots alone. Designed objects are meant to work, but to ascertain whether they do, and whether they are good things of their kind, requires us to use them or put them to the test: is the coffee any good? Can we lift the lid to serve it? Does the pot leak or the metal corrode? Some of these virtues and deficiencies will not be apparent to the eye alone, and this means that judgements of design excellence...require more than observation...(p. 183) This passage shows that Forsey’s approach can accommodate invisible design quite straightforwardly. Good invisible design will show up when the object is put to work. We can see this through Forsey’s comparison between her own coffee-pot and “his”: #### But his coffee-pot, I want to claim, has flaws that are hidden behind that newness and shine, that detract from its beauty. First, brass conducts heat, and each time you reach for the handle, or put your finger on the lid, you burn yourself. Bakelite remains cool. Second, the sleek rounded design makes it very hard to unscrew the two halves, especially if you already have soapy hands. My octagonal pot turns as easily as a nut in a wrench, whether wet or dry. Third, the conical shape of his means the opening of the top pot is too narrow to fit even a small hand in to clean it, whereas mine, as wide at the top as at the bottom, welcomes a quick scrub. (p. 181 – p. 182) While the aluminium of Forsey’s coffee-pot has started to corrode (it looks less fit for function that it used to), and its finish is no longer shiny (its formal properties are not what they were), using it allows for various hidden qualities to show up: coffee can be made without burning one’s fingers, it opens more easily, and it is more easily cleaned.  ### 2.2 The Pleasure of Use Unlike Parsons and Carlson’s Functional Beauty, Forsey’s account makes room for use. However, on her account using an object is merely a means of assessing how well an object performs its function. We suggest that this approach does not fully capture the role that using an object plays in design appreciation. We can begin to see this by noting that although Forsey is right to say that certain virtues of her coffee-pot do not show up if we just look at the thing, they can be revealed by seeing someone else use it. Watching whether someone else singes their fingers while making coffee will be just as informative as singeing one’s own fingers. However, we suggest, simply observing an object being used leaves something important out: the experience of interacting with that object.  Forsey's account, in this respect, bears some resemblance to Nguyen’s notion of “harmony of solution”, which he describes as the aesthetic quality arising from how well a solution fits a given problem or challenge. He writes: #### "Here is a trap; there is an elegant resolution. Call this the harmony of solution. The harmony of solution is strictly a harmony between the solution and the obstacle; it makes no explicit reference to the actor or their capacities. The harmony of the solution is available to both spectator and player." (p. 102) This concept could apply to design in terms of how well a designed object solves a problem. It might explain our appreciation of clever or elegant design solutions. For instance, we might admire the elegant simplicity of a paperclip or the ingenious design of a Swiss Army knife.  The harmony of solution, however, has limitations when it comes to explaining the aesthetics of interaction. It doesn't focus on the experience of using the object. As Nguyen points out, this harmony is available to both users and observers, making it not specific to interaction. While it may contribute to our overall appreciation of a design, it does not capture the specific aesthetic experience of interaction we're seeking to explain.Consider the following example. For the last few months a professional violist’s favourite viola has been in the repair shop. Finally, it is returned to her and she begins to play. As she does so, she appreciates the unique tone that only her viola can produce, this is something she has missed in the months she has had to play her backup viola. Moreover, she has never been able to play the back up quite as well: its poorly cut bridge does not allow for the nuanced playing made possible by her favourite, and its rougher fretboard meant she can never move her fingers as smoothly as she can with her favourite. These features show up for the violist as she is playing, but both would also be available to an audience. Discerning listeners would judge her favourite to be superior to her back up. However, there is an aspect of use which is available only to violist herself: the experience of playing her viola. It is not simply that she can play better with her favourite, it is that her favourite feels better to play. Using an object allows for aesthetically appreciable interactive experiences, mere observation does not.  It is in fact common to praise or criticise objects (utensils) in terms of what it is like to use them. Almost everyone would prefer to eat using a metal fork than a plastic one. Why? In most cases a plastic fork is just as effective as a metal one, and while there is a chance that a plastic fork might snap if you stab your food with too much force, they are rarely so flimsy for this to be a real possibility. We suggest that this preference is because it feels better to use a metal fork, than to use a plastic one. Consider also the sorts of product review which litter Youtube and the internet more generally. A review of a car will make reference to how it looks, efficacy, ease of use etc. but they will also often tell you how it feels to drive. Does it feel satisfying to turn the steering wheel, accelerate etc.? These considerations suggest the following: the aesthetics of design, at least when it comes to utensils like a viola or a fork, has an agentive component. Use is not merely a means of assessing how well an object performs its function, but an aspect of aesthetic appreciation in its own right. In the following section we will show how an aesthetics of interaction with designed objects should be understood.  ## 3. The Aesthetics of Interaction ### 3.1 Appreciating actions Even if one accepts that there are experiences of interaction, and that they can be more or less pleasurable, we can still ask whether this pleasure is aesthetic.  Why think that the viola player’s appreciation of how it feels to play her favourite is more similar to commonly agreed upon aesthetic pleasures like taking in a work of art or looking out over a landscape, rather than garden variety pleasures like taking a bath or tasting sugar? While we have no knock down argument to this challenge, the idea that one’s own actions can be objects of aesthetic appreciation is not uncommon in contemporary aesthetics. First, Montero writes about dancers aesthetically appreciating their own movements:    #### “it is natural, at least for dancers, to talk of experiencing beauty proprioceptively. A dancer, during a rehearsal onstage—a situation in which there are no mirrors—may claim that a certain movement or position is beautiful or […] complain that the beauty, or whatever other aesthetic quality he or she is aiming at producing, is lacking: 'The movement is too abrupt’; 'The line is ugly'; 'I'm not feeling the connections' are all phrases that roll naturally off a dancer's tongue" (2006 p. 232). She goes on to defend this idea against objections concerning the privacy of proprioceptive experience and its apparent inability to ground aesthetic disagreements, and to argue that proprioception can inform aesthetic judgments not only for performers but also for observers through a form of kinesthetic empathy (REF). Note that Montero uses 'proprioception' more broadly than it is commonly used, to mean both proprioception (awareness of how one's body is positioned in space), and kinaesthetic awareness (awareness of how one's body is moving through space). Nevertheless, it is easy to see how these ideas can be transposed to the aesthetics of use: a well-designed musical instrument might elicit beautiful, graceful movements, while a poorly designed keyboard or coffee-pot might elicit abrupt, ugly ones. Nguyen goes one step further, arguing that one can aesthetically appreciate one’s own actions, and that this can occur both in everyday life but especially in games: #### Games, I’m suggesting, are process-centered. When I make aesthetic judgments in response to a game, I am ascribing aesthetic properties and qualities to my own processes—to the actions and activities that I perform in response to the game. #### (Nguyen, Games: Agency as Art, p. 142) Phenomenologically, we can differentiate actions from mere movements in terms of our sense of agency: the sense that we are the source of our movements. There is a phenomenological difference between your leg moving because a doctor has tapped it with a hammer, and you deliberately moving your leg. What is lacking in the former but present in the latter case is a sense of you yourself as causing the movement. We can see from the passage below that Nguyen also believes that we can aesthetically appreciate our own mental actions as well as bodily ones:  #### Fixing a broken car engine, figuring out a math proof, managing a corporation, even getting into a bar fight—each can have its own particular interest and beauty. These include the satisfaction of finding an elegant solution to an administrative problem, of dodging perfectly around an unexpected obstacle. These experiences are wonderful—but in the wild, they are far too rare. Games can concentrate those experiences. When we design games, we can sculpt the shape of the activity to make beautiful action more likely. And games can intensify and refine those aesthetic qualities, just as a painting can intensify and refine the aesthetic qualities we find in the natural sights and sounds of the world. (2020, p. 13) As with bodily movements we can differentiate mental actions, such as deliberately working through a mathematical proof, from mere occurrent thoughts, such as when a thought suddenly ‘pops’ into your head unbidden.  The relevance of these ideas to an use based aesthetics of design should be obvious. Nguyen is mistaken in thinking that aesthetically appreciable actions occur outside of games only very seldomly. Well designed utensils, like violas and coffee-pots, elicit aesthetically pleasing actions from users; the butterfly keyboard did not. It is also not difficult to apply these ideas to what we might call ‘perceptual artifacts’, objects whose function is to be perceived, such as pages of text or clocks. The act of reading is pleasing if text is laid out clearly in a readable typeface, but not when it is poorly spaced and set in an overly ornate typeface. ### 3.2 The Question of Difficulty While the agentive aesthetics of design and the agentive aesthetics of games are similar in many ways, we will argue here that they differ in at least one respect, which can be brought out by considering the relationship between aesthetic agency and difficulty.  Questions about aesthetic pleasure as it relates to difficulty arise for both games and interactions with designed objects. In games, we might ask why people enjoy difficult games (REF). With designed objects, we face a different challenge: to explain why people enjoy designed objects that areobjects are created either to make an otherwise impossible task possible, or to make a possible task easier: telescopes and microscopes function to make otherwise invisible objects visible; washing machines function to make washing clothes more convenient. On the other hand, our lives are filled with mundane, easy actions that we do not typically find especially aesthetically satisfying. As we shall see, Nguyen’s solution for the question of difficulty in games does not provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of difficulty in design. Nguyen uses the concept of harmony of capacity to explain why people enjoy difficult games. He describes this as the aesthetic quality arising from how well one's overall capacities match the demands of a task, especially when pushed to their limits: #### "This is an experience, not just of a particular action's fitting the requirements at hand. It is an experience of your whole self fitting the task. It is the experience of your abilities, worked at their maximum, just barely making it." (p. 109) Consider the exhilaration of playing Tetris at a high level. As the speed increases, every action you make will be right at the limit of your capacities, you are managing to place each block just in time. Such experiences, as Nguyen points out, this sort of harmony is rare in everyday life and is normally only encountered in games.  He explains that many everyday tasks are either too easy, too difficult, or too repetitive to allow for an experience of this type of harmony. Moreover, it's difficult to quantify or standardise the "edge of ability" for everyday objects. While the harmony of capacity might be applicable to some specialised design contexts, it doesn't fully capture the range of aesthetically pleasing interactions we're interested in for everyday design objects. This highlights our first point of difference between game aesthetics and design aesthetics: the relationship between difficulty and aesthetic satisfaction in using designed objects cannot be straightforwardly explained by Nguyen's notion of the harmony of capacity. ### 3.3 Aesthetic Effortlessness in Design Interactions We suggest that the best way of accommodating the relationship between aesthetically pleasing experiences of interaction and ease of use is through Montero's ideas of aesthetic effortlessness. In her work, she aims to characterise what it is for something to appear effortless, and explain why effortlessness is aesthetically appealing. Montero does not equate something looking effortless with something looking easy, as can be seen in the following passage: "When we attribute effortlessness to bodily movements in dance, it seems that at least in many cases we also see the work as, in some sense, difficult; we see it as difficult, yet appearing easy." This apparent paradox of difficult actions appearing easy extends beyond dance. In music, for instance, Bach's fugues can seem, in a sense, obvious to a skilled pianist, despite their complexity and cleverness. These examples highlight that aesthetic effortlessness often involves a perceived ease in the execution of objectively challenging tasks. To explain why we find this quality aesthetically appealing, Montero adapts Herbert Spencer's idea of 'superfluity of fitness': "If the movements we dub as effortless are movements that would be for us difficult to perform yet appear to be performed with reduced effort, then part of the reason why effortless action is attractive could be that it reveals a superfluity of fitness." (Montero, 2012, p. 140) The concept of 'superfluity of fitness' illuminates why effortlessness is aesthetically appealing. When we perceive an action as effortless, we implicitly recognise that the actor possesses capabilities that exceed the demands of the task at hand. This surplus of ability allows for the execution of even complex actions with apparent ease, creating a harmonious relationship between the actor and the action. The aesthetic appeal of this effortlessness stems from its suggestion of mastery and control. When we observe a violinist effortlessly playing a challenging piece or an athlete gracefully performing a difficult manoeuvre, we experience a sense of admiration. This response arises not merely from the successful completion of the task, but from the perceived harmony between the actor's capabilities and the action's requirements. While Montero's account focuses on the perception of effortlessness in others, our analysis requires a shift to the first-person experience of effortlessness. This leads us to the concept of agentive effortlessness, which includes proprioceptive effortlessness as one of its forms. Agentive effortlessness refers to an agent's experience of their own actions as effortless, even when performing objectively difficult tasks. This concept aligns with Nguyen's ideas about an aesthetics of agency, which focus on the ability to appreciate our own actions, both mental and physical. In the context of design interactions, the concept of agentive effortlessness can explain how users derive aesthetic satisfaction from using well-designed objects. The application of agentive effortlessness to design interactions reveals two distinct types of experiences: 1. Expert-oriented agentive effortlessness: This type is exemplified by tools like a well-balanced chef's knife. Such objects allow users to develop and express high levels of skill. The knife's design facilitates smooth, precise cutting, enabling experienced users to perform complex tasks with apparent ease. The aesthetic satisfaction derives from the user's sense of their own expertise, amplified by the tool's design. This aligns closely with Montero's original concept, where the superfluity of fitness is most apparent in skilled performances. 2. Novice-oriented agentive effortlessness: This type is illustrated by devices like the original iPod. Here, the design allows even novice users to perform what would otherwise be complex tasks (managing a large music library) with ease. The aesthetic pleasure stems from the user's sense of accomplishing something sophisticated effortlessly, despite their lack of expertise. This extends Montero's concept by suggesting that good design can create a sense of superfluity of fitness even in users who lack high levels of skill. In both cases, the aesthetic quality of the interaction stems from the user's experience of effortlessness, which is facilitated by the object's design. This effortlessness reflects a perceived abundance of ability relative to the demands of using the object, echoing Montero's concept of superfluity of fitness. This account of agentive effortlessness in design interactions offers several advantages over Nguyen's concept of harmony of capacity: 1. It explains aesthetic satisfaction across a broader range of interactions, from simple to complex. While Nguyen's harmony of capacity focuses on experiences at the edge of one's abilities, agentive effortlessness can account for aesthetic experiences in both challenging and everyday interactions. 2. It focuses on the user's subjective experience of ease, rather than the objective match between task difficulty and user ability. This allows for aesthetic experiences even in interactions with well-designed objects that don't push users to their limits. 3. It directly addresses how object design contributes to the aesthetic experience. The concept of agentive effortlessness explicitly considers how the design of an object can facilitate a sense of effortlessness in the user, whether expert or novice. 4. It aligns with the design goal of creating objects that feel effortless to use, while still allowing for the development and expression of skill. This dual consideration of both ease and skill development is particularly relevant for design contexts. In sum, bBy adapting Montero's concept of aesthetic effortlessness to the realm of agentive experience in design interactions, we can account for the aesthetic satisfaction derived from interacting with well-designed objects. This framework accommodates both the simple pleasure of effortless everyday interactions and the more complex satisfaction of skilful use, providing an explanation of the relationship between difficulty, ease, and aesthetic pleasure in design that aligns with and extends Nguyen's aesthetics of agency. ### 4. Agentive Phenomenology and Intentional Structure ### New Version In Section 3, we explored how Nguyen's concept of harmony of capacity, while illuminating for game aesthetics, has limited application to the aesthetics of design. While harmony of capacity is specific to games, Nguyen also considers a third kind of harmony, namely, "harmony of action," which he describes as the aesthetic quality arising from how well an individual's actions fit the demands of a situation. He illustrates this concept: #### "When you time a jump just so in Super Mario Brothers; or when you figure out, during a rock climb, that you need to slide your hips over just enough to balance on that tiny nubbin of rock, you're experiencing more than the harmony of solution. You're experiencing your agency and action as fitting the demands of the environment." (Nguyen, p. 108) Earlier, he provides a different real-world example: #### "A car swerves into my lane and I react smoothly, dodging perfectly. Afterward, I am struck by the gracefulness of my own instinctive response." (Nguyen, pp. 101–102) Unlike the harmony of capacity, Nguyen believes that harmonies of action can be experienced both in games and in the real world. If this is correct, then it seems we have found another way of explaining or understanding the sorts of agentive aesthetic experiences that designed objects may elicit. Your car might make you experience yourself as gracefully swerving around an obstacle; my experience might be less of gracefulness and more of clumsiness or a lack of control. However, there is a crucial difference here. While it is reasonable to think that something like the harmony of action factors into both real-life and in-game interactions, the way in which actions fit the environment differs significantly between the two. In games like Super Mario Brothers, fitting the environment involves performing actions that align with the game's predefined rules and objectives. The environment is controlled and designed with clear challenges and rewards. Timing a jump perfectly to overcome an obstacle fits precisely within the game's immediate demands and offers instant feedback. In contrast, in real-life situations such as swerving a car to avoid an obstacle, 'fitting the environment' encompasses a broader and more complex set of factors. The environment is unpredictable and multifaceted, involving physical conditions, other drivers' behaviours, legal considerations, and personal safety concerns. Successfully navigating such a situation requires quick judgement and actions that fit into a larger context of societal norms and personal well-being. These differences in what counts as fitting the environment are reflected in our agentive phenomenology—that is, in the way we experience ourselves as agents acting in the world. Horgan identifies several facets of agentive phenomenology: self as source, optionality, purposiveness, and means-ends teleology. These are elements of our phenomenological experience that contribute to how we perceive our actions and their fittingness within the environment. For example, when someone decides to pick up a glass of water: - Self as Source: They experience themselves as the initiator of the action. - Optionality: They feel they could choose to pick up the glass or not. - Purposiveness: The action is done with the purpose of quenching thirst. - Means-Ends Teleology: Grasping the glass is a means to the end of drinking water. Our experience of acting in the world involves these aspects of agentive phenomenology. Real-life situations and games may produce different experiences of these elements.  They may vary between real-world and game contexts. Horgan's chromatic illumination concept provides a way to analyse these variations. Although Horgan originally introduces chromatic illumination as one more aspect of agentive phenomenology, it can be better understood as a way of explaining how the other aspects of agency appear in conscious experience. Chromatic illumination refers to the conscious appreciation of background information and its holistic relevance to a cognitive task, without that information being represented by any conscious, occurrent, intentional mental state. This concept captures how unrepresented information can shape conscious experience, affecting our perceptions and actions without being explicitly "before the mind." Horgan is explicit about "purposes" being chromatically illuminated in agentive experience. He states: #### "Often, many of the purposes informing one's actions affect the character of one's agentive experience by being implicitly appreciated consciously without actually being represented in consciousness. These purposes are phenomenologically operative as reasons for one's actions, coloring the specific character of one's agentive experience without being overtly 'before the mind.'" (Horgan, p. 265) Similarly, aspects like means-ends teleology, self as source, and optionality can be understood as being chromatically illuminated. When we act, we typically have a sense not only of our immediate goals but also of the broader context, possibilities, and reasons for our actions. These elements may not be explicitly represented in our conscious thought, but they inform and color our experience. In real-life actions, the web of purposes, means-ends relationships, and options is typically much richer and more complex than in games. Our actions are often embedded in multi-layered intentional structures, encompassing immediate objectives, long-term goals, social norms, and personal values. For instance, swerving to avoid an obstacle not only serves the immediate purpose of preventing an accident but is also connected to broader concerns like personal safety, legal responsibilities, and the well-being of others. These layers of meaning and purpose are chromatically illuminated in our experience, contributing to a rich phenomenological texture. In contrast, game actions usually occur within more constrained intentional frameworks. The purposes, options, and means-ends relationships in games are often more limited and clearly defined by the game's rules and objectives. While still engaging, the intentional structure is less complex, and the chromatic illumination is correspondingly narrower. The game's environment is framed and bounded, creating a "magic circle" that distinguishes play from ordinary life—a concept introduced by Huizinga (1955). Within this magic circle, actions are self-contained, and their meanings are confined to the game's context. These differences in the richness and complexity of chromatic illumination lead to variations in our agentive phenomenology between real-life and game situations. In real life, the chromatic illumination of our actions encompasses a broader array of purposes and meanings, contributing to a more nuanced and layered experience of agency. In games, the chromatic illumination is more focused, aligning with the game's specific goals and rules. Understanding how chromatic illumination shapes our experience of the other aspects of agency—self as source, optionality, purposiveness, and means-ends teleology—enhances our appreciation of design aesthetics. Well-designed objects facilitate pleasing experiences not just through their visual or tactile properties but by enabling us to act in ways that harmoniously fit the complex demands of our real-world environment. They allow our actions to be chromatically illuminated by rich backgrounds of purpose and meaning, contributing to an aesthetically satisfying user experience. This deeper, more contextually embedded form of aesthetic appreciation sets design apart from games and other more constrained forms of aesthetic experience. The continuity with the real world, as opposed to the framed nature of games, means that design aesthetics can tap into the richness of our everyday experiences—a theme we have developed throughout this paper. Ultimately, the notion of chromatic illumination enables us to phenomenologically interpret Evnine’s (2016) hylomorphic account of actions as constituted by an intentional form impressed onto a matter that consists of bodily movements. Relying on Kriegel’s (2015) “conative phenomenology,” one might add that actions impress the phenomenological form of “deciding-cum-trying” onto bodily movements. We can further characterise the action’s phenomenological form through Horgan’s notion of chromatic illumination, just as we can characterise the action’s phenomenological matter in terms of proprioception (including kinaesthesia) by appealing to Montero’s aesthetics of dance. Moreover, if we want to make room for the sort of mental actions that are crucial to aesthetic appreciation of games such as chess and of artifacts such as timetables, we must consider actions that have an intentional form involving chromatic illumination but whose matter does not consist of bodily movements but rather of changes in the content of the relevant mental states. This expands our understanding of how designed objects can facilitate not just physical interactions but also cognitive engagements that are rich in phenomenological content. To conclude, the aesthetics of design can fruitfully be compared to both the aesthetics of dance and the aesthetics of games. Aesthetically appreciating design is, in this sense, a sort of playing with or dancing with a technical artifact. Yet, the aesthetics of design differs from the aesthetics of dance since the former may also consist of mental actions while the latter is based on bodily movements. Technical artifacts are closer to games than dance in this respect since the aesthetic appreciation of them both can be centred on actions whose hylomorphic matter consists of changes in mental content rather than bodily movements. However, the aesthetics of design differs from the aesthetics of games in virtue of the depth and complexity of its chromatically illuminated form. Games are similar to dance in this respect since they both involve framed actions. Design, instead, leads us to aesthetically appreciate actions intertwined with our life. By recognizing that differences in the experience of "fitting the demands of the environment" are realised in the phenomenological aspects of means-ends teleology and purposiveness, and understanding how chromatic illumination enriches these experiences, we can better appreciate the unique aesthetic qualities that well-designed objects bring to our everyday experiences and the profound ways in which they shape and enhance our interactions with the world. References Forsey, J. (2013). The aesthetics of design Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. J. H. Bernard, trans. New York: Hafner, 1972. **