Emotional Design - Why We Love Or Hate Everyday Things

The next task that is been given to be is to write about some of the issues in the book of Donald A. Norman's Emotional Design - Why We Love Or Hate Everyday Things. The prologue of the book is so long and I kinda laugh when I read it and made me think about things that Donald A. Norman said in his book.

Prologue

This is the first time I read a prologue as long as this but it really made me smile and think thoroughly. The intriguing part of the prologue is of course about the three tea pots. Why does he have until three tea pots but none of them he doesn't even use it? It made me think why do sometimes we buy stuffs or keep things that didn't even have any use?It does made me think hard. I even can't understand why does I buy an action figure, Freedom Gundam, that costs me RM100 without any relevance of purpose or didn't have any function for me to use. It really does a mind bobbling question.

In Donald A. Norman's case, he have three tea pots that is being display, in the alcove formed by the kitchen window even though they aren't in use, but still there they are,visible. I think that for me, he really does appreciates artwork rather that the useful side of the stuff. He said that he likes to stare at the three tea pots while drinking his tea in the morning because he enjoys to do that. Just like my case, I bought an action figure. It doesn't do me any useful things other that making poses and just for display but for me, it really lift up my mood just do poses and display it and maybe take a few pictures.

The First Chapter

One of the first chapter of this book, Donald A. Norman said that attractive things work better. A research has been done to prove just this. Noam Tractinsky, an Israeli scientist, do a research on the ATM machine that has been researched by two Japanese researchers, Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kishimura. They both had set up two ATM machines just to prove that attractive things work better. Both ATM machines are very similar except that the buttons and screen had been arranged attractively. The Japanese found that the attractive ones were perceived to be easier to use. Noam Tractinsky couldn't believe it and claim that the research had flaws so he redid the research again. He said that aesthetic preferences are culturally dependent and Israelis are action-oriented. He was so surprised of what the outcome of the research. It was more convincing result than in Japan and labeled it as "were not expected".

I think that people are more attracted to attractive things rather than ugly ones. The researches also proves it from my personal experiences also I kinda agree on what Donald A. Norman said.

On another issues, he said that, science now knows that evolutionary more advanced animals are more emotional than primitive ones, the human being the most emotional of all. People do intend to do things according to their emotions.

Emotions do play a critical role in our daily lives like helping assess situations like good or bad, safe or dangerous. Emotions can be categorize in two and that is positive and negative. Positive emotions can be critical on the purpose of learning, creative thinking and much more. Like stated in this book, a psychologist name Alice Isen and her colleagues have shown that being happy broadens the mind to think creatively. For example, if we were to answer a question regarding about what to do when we were to be caught on a building on fire, what would we do? If we were calm and think creatively, we can think of many ways to escaped rather than relying on the emergency exit.

Negative emotions on solving things only focus on trying directly to solve the problem but on the other hand, positive emotions affects our thinking and tries to solve the problem not just focusing on the problem. They will tend to assess the problem than make not just one way to solve it. So, emotions really aid us on making choices and many more things.

That is just some of the things that I pointed out on chapter one. Now on to the next chapter.

The Second Chapter

In this chapter, Donald A. Norman describes that they are three level in design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. It's still true that, products should be functional, but now he explains why they should be beautiful and have an emotional impact as well. This three level plays an important part in shaping one's experience and also require a different approach by the designer based on the designers experience. 

Designing for the visceral level means designing what the senses initially perceive, before any deeper involvement with a product or artifact occurs. Visceral design is about emotional impact. It consists on three dominating factors that is look, feel and sound. These three factors are linked together and consistent to people and their cultures. It's about the first initial reaction. Visceral designers always looks for a positive reactions like "I want it", "How much does it cost", and so on. This is emotional impact.

Next is the Behavioral level. Designing for the behavioral level means designing product behaviors that complement a user’s own behaviors, their own assumptions, and mental models. Behavioral level needs to focus on both use and performance of the design. This level has four components and that is function, understand-ability, usability and physical feel.

Function comes first among the four components because it needs to fulfill the needs and can be tricky. I said tricky because people's needs are not as obvious as we might thought. The designers have to watch their costumers to understand on how they will use a product. For example, a car's cup holder. The design is so simple yet so useful. Just stick it on the windshield of a car, and WALLAH. Simple yet useful.

Understand-ability is next in the component. The secret is to make a proper conceptual model. If we receives continual feedback on the model,it is good so that we can make improvement on the model. Many of the products gives inadequate feedback. To be effective and achieved a good understanding, we needs to enhance the conceptual model and indicates what is happening and what remains to be done on the model.

The next component is usability. It's a complex topic to talk about. Product that does what is required and understandable, may still not be useful to other people. For example, guitar,violin, piano and so on. There are certain critical test for a product such as "How well does the product perform?" or "How comfortable does it feel to use?" and other questions related.

The last component is physical feel. Designers tends to worry a lot about the physical feel of their products. This can make huge differences in our appreciations and can be critical towards to our behavioral assessment of a product. Why does we even bother about physical feel?Isn't the use is more important?Physical feel is important because we are biological creature. We have interaction between our sensory systems and the environment. We tends to like beautiful things.

Now it's the reflective design level. Reflective design is kinda like a message, culture or a meaning of a product. It's also kinda like an image that we presented to others. For an instance, Apple products. The logo is Apple.

We can see that Apple is so famous. Anywhere we go, people knows this brand. The essence of reflective design is it's all in the mind of the beholder. Now the question is to prefer function or fashion? There are two things that is attractiveness and beauty.

Attractiveness on a visceral level is the response entirely on the surface look of an object. Beauty is on the reflective level is influenced by knowledge, learning and culture. Advertising can work on both visceral and reflective level.

I'll explain a bit about the reflective level of product. Reflective level shows person's overall impression. It is about long-term customer experience on service, providing a personal touch and good interaction.

So, a human-centered approach works well for behavioral design, but it is not necessarily appropriate for either the visceral or the reflective side. 

The Third Chapter

"Wow, yes, I like it, I want it." It is, as one designer explained tome, the "wow" factor. The reflective side of emotion is involved as well, for the saved bottles can serve as reminders of the occasion when the beverage was ordered or consumed. Because both wine and expensive water are sometimes purchased for special occasions, the bottles serve as mementos of those occasions, taking on a special emotional value,becoming meaningful objects, not because of the objects themselves,but because of the memories they produce, and, as I said in chapter two, memories can trigger the powerful, long-lasting emotions.

What are the design factors in play here, where pure appearance is the issue, beauty that is all on the surface? This is where those genetic, hard-wired biological processes play their role. Here the designs are opt to be "eye candy," as sweet to the eye as the taste of candy to the mouth. Yet just as sweet-tasting candy is empty of nutritional value,so is appearance empty beneath the surface.

 Human responses to the everyday things of the world are complex, determined by a wide variety of factors. Some of these are outside the person, controlled by designer and manufacturer, or by advertising and such things as brand image. And some come from within, from your own, private experiences. Each of the three levels of design - visceral, behavioral, and reflective - plays its part in shaping your experience. Each is as important as the others, but each requires a different approach by the designer. Visceral design is what nature does. We humans evolved to co-exist in the environment of other humans, animals, plants, landscapes, weather, and other natural phenomena. As a result, we are exquisitely tuned to receive powerful emotional signals from the environment that get interpreted automatically at the visceral level.

In conclusion, the three chapters kinda reflect on the emotional side of a human characteristics. It also includes the three level that is visceral design, behavioral design and reflective design. We must take our emotions seriously so that we can be more positive, creative thinking and more open to the enviroment.

By NAZIRUL IZZUAN BIN ZUL AKMAR ( D20111050109)