Book Reading #30 - Emotional Design

Title:
Three Levels of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective


Reference:
Norman, Donald.  Emotional Design. Basic Books.  New York. 2004

Summary:
The Three Levels of Design obviously focused on the visceral, behavioral, and reflective design.  Focusing first on the visceral, or more than likely the first thing that grabs someone's attention, good visceral design relates "pretty-ness" to an item playing on our outward emotion.  These things are wired into the way we work, the way we see features and observe them.  Here shape and form matter.

Second we have behavioral design.  This is the realm where use is the driving factor.  A product must be usable.  The question is asked, "does it fulfill needs"?  Enhancement and innovation are driving forces in this aspect of design.  Testing and user observation (recognizing and listening to user complaints and suggestions) are incredibly important in order for a product to excel in this type of design principle.  This is an aspect that is much forgotten or disregarded by the designer.

The last aspect of design talked about it reflective design.  This is where sense and emotion really come into play.  Reflective design cuts deep into personal remembrances and even self-image, the way one perceives himself.  It is a message one wants to convey.  Norman points to reflective design as that which "often determines a person's overall impression of a product".

He gives an example of the football coaches headset as an example of a design that needed to use all three principles in a rigid manor.

He also points out how often ease of use and good emotional response is good for design, but sometimes designers want to produce the opposite emotion in people in order to entice them.  He gives Diesel as an example of this.

He shows the difference by committee design and a one-person design.  While iterative approaches are good for behavioral appeal and have the potential to last for a while, a single individual in design has the opportunity to really produce a product that astounds.  He can produce a great product.

Discussion:
This chapter was just an extension on his last about the three properties of design.  It was good to see a few more examples of how the balance is needed in much design but is sometimes neglected or a different route taken.  It is difficult to capture design in general in just a few terms as there is so much appeal by different standards, but I think this chapter did an adequate job of stretching over all the realms in order to give a fairly good idea of different approaches to take at design.