Emotions have a crucial role in our ability to understand the world. Studies have shown that an object that “pleases” us appears to be more effective. This is due to the affinity we feel for an object that appeals to us – an emotional connection.
In his book Emotional Design, Dr. Donald Norman proposes a framework for analyzing products in a holistic way to include their attractiveness, their behavior, and the image they present. These aspects of a product are identified with different levels of “processing” by people that translate into three different kinds of design:
Visceral design – refers primarily to that initial impact, to its appearance
Behavioral design – is about look and feel – the total experience of using a product
Reflection – is about afterthought, how it makes us feel, the image it portrays, the message it tells us about the owner’s taste.
A good design should address all three levels. An attractive design is not necessarily the most efficient. It is beauty that is important for our lives – beauty in our environment, in our surroundings, in our actions, and in the products we buy and use. Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability — they go hand in hand. That’s the message of “Emotional Design.”
For more information about emotional design, visit Donald Normans’ website
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Sean Van Tyne
Sean’s passion is propagating great experiences and making life better.
International speaker, best-selling author and advisor, Sean is an industry leader that helps organizations on their design strategy, operations, and process to deliver innovative solutions with best-in-class experiences to increase customer loyalty and advocacy that creates sustainable long-term revenue.
Sean lectures at the Rady School of Management, UCSD; is an Advocate for the Design Forward Alliance, promoting the values of design and design thinking for better outcomes in business, education, and government; and is a member of the Advisory Board for Thinking Engines, an IoT company helping organizations monitor environmental abnormalities in properties to help provide real time assurance while mitigating risks.
Sean Van Tyne is the author of Easy to Use 2.0: User Experience Design in Agile Development for Enterprise Software, co-author of The Customer Experience Revolution: How Companies Like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks Have Changed Business Forever, and a contributing author for The Guide to the Product Management and Marketing Body of Knowledge (the ProdBOK® Guide).
Sean is currently working on another book, speaking at events and providing strategic leadership advisement to organizations that values people and long-term growth.
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