Don Norman on Emotional Design

Creating new products have come a long way in the world of design. In the past, designing a new product would have meant making it function more efficiently. But what if the function of the product is at the peak of its existence; at its prime? Beauty and fun versus function; the latter is becoming a dying breed in the design world. I feel that this is true as we are coming to a time where modern technology is allowing us to create products which are highly functional. This is why emotional design must be considered when designing a product.

Donald Norman discusses how he used to design for usability…for function but then the aesthetics of the product would not have been in decline. But now his ‘new me’ attitude focuses on beauty and emotion and being fun.

“Pleasant things seem to work better”

From the quote above, Donald Norman describes how emotions allow people to react differently to certain products. The example he gave about 2 groups of students in a room trying to solve a problem of tying two strings together was interesting as he explained that when under anxiety neural transmitters are realized into your brain which makes you more focus and depth first. This explained why I always performed more efficiently when under pressure. Whilst when in a happy positive state, dopamine is squirted into the pre frontal lobe which makes you a breadth thinker making you think outside of the box. This level of thinking can be represented into products; if the products are appealing the mind becomes curious to how it works and becomes attracted to it.

Donald Norman Divides the emotional experience into three processes which include a Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective process. The Visceral level is the most basic and is set within us through biology and years of evolution. It includes our senses our attraction to different smells, textures, sights, noises and etc. An example of this is when a person buys a visually appeasing water bottle. The user doesn’t buy because of the water but because of the visually attractive bottle that they could use for decoration.

The second level is Behavioral which is feeling in control which means usability and function of the product. An example is the Rondavel tilting teapot, there’s 3 stages which include a lying down, tilted and standing up right. The teapot evokes and emotional response and communicates to waiters that the pot if out of water when it is lying down. It gives the users control of when they want their tea and how strong the tea to be.

The final level is reflective and is the level where that little voice in your head resides. The voice that tells you things are going to be okay, the voice that says this is good, that is bad and etc. An example is buying an environmentally safe car, even though it’s very expensive. You want to show other people that you care about the world.

As designers we need to consider the emotional hierarchy so that we can evoke an emotional response in our target markets so that they will be inclined to interact with our designs.