Case from William W. Gaver, Jacob Beaver and Steve Benford - Converence on Human Factors in Computing Systems

The Telegotchi is an electronic pet with no buttons, relying on psionic powers for influence. Both these designs work within understood contexts – of spirituality on the one hand, and telepathy on the other – and invite users to share the experience of believers.

Designs like these do not simply engender ambivalence, or contradictory emotion. They push us to imagine how we might personally use such products, and what our lives would be like in consequence. As a result of this speculation, we form intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, and
moral judgements that can become available for self reflection.

The result of this process can be experiences that are uniquely personal: delightful, disturbing, or both.

In summary, the three kinds of ambiguity raise different sorts of problem and ask for different sorts of interpretation. Ambiguity of information asks us to project our expectations into an interpretation of incomplete information. Ambiguity of context requires an integration of seemingly incompatible frames of reference. Ambiguity of relationship, finally, evokes a projection of our subjective experiences and attitudes onto new situations.

References
Gaver, W.W., Beaver, J. and Benford, S. 2003. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 223 - 240. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/642611.642653 (Accessed August 03, 2007).