The conference summary page from IA Summit 2004 pointed me to the work of Uday Gajendar from the Usability and Interface Design Group at Oracle. Some interesting writings by Uday:
Design for Beauty: Exploring the Human Experience of Interaction Design: My thesis sought to understand the concept of beauty as a value of human-product interactions in daily experience. Beauty is typically associated with aesthetics and nature, but can the experience of a digital product, like a cell phone or a website, be characterized as beautiful?
Beauty in Design: From Aesthetic Value to Experiential Quality: This paper suggests how beauty may relate to user experience, as an expression of the form and function of a product. The goal of providing a positive user experience intensifies as the environment of human activity is shaped by electronic, multifunctional products and services...
And more.