User experience as mental contents

User experience has received a lot of attention in human technology interaction research. Although widely used, it is still a concept, which needs theoretical and methodological clarification. Our study adopts the theoretical framework of mental contents in the investigation of user experience. We study user experience as mental contents by analysing affective participant responses to drinking glasses. Two experiments are reported, the first with pictures of drinking glasses as stimuli and the second with real drinking glasses. Our analysis shows that user experience can be operationalised as dimensions of mental contents, which can be studied using questionnaires containing semantic differential items. Three similar factors emerged in both experiments: beauty, decorativeness, and practicality. Beauty and practicality were shown to be associated with the participant's willingness to own the glass. The results suggest that our methodology and ontological approach based on taking 'user experience as mental contents' has implications for design.