Design and emotion

Draft

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Introduction

“Product design that provides aesthetic appeal, pleasure and satisfaction can greatly influence the success of a product. Traditional cognitive approaches to product usability have tended to underestimate or fragment emotion from an understanding of the user experience. Affect, which is inexplicable linked to attitudes, expectations and motivations, plays a significant role in the cognition of product interaction, and therefore can be usefully treated as a design aid. Emotion influences and mediates specific aspects of interaction before, during and after the use of a product. These affective states regularly impact how a user manipulates and explores a user interface in order to support a desired cognitive state.” (Frank Spillers, 2007, retrieved 17:35, 26 April 2011 (CEST)).

According to Rafaeli and Vilnai-Yavetz (2004) summarized by Spillers (2007), sense-making of the artifact involves emotion in three ways:

1. Instrumentality: Tasks the artifact helps accomplish.
2. Aesthetics: Sensory reaction to the artifact.
3. Symbolism: Association the artifact elicits.

Links

• Designing and testing for emotion (fluid project).

Bibliography

• De Lera, Eva & Muriel Garreta-Domingo (2007). Ten Emotion Heuristics: Guidelines for assessing the user's affective dimension easily and cost-effectively, in Devina Ramduny-Ellis & Dorothy Rachovides (Editors), Proceedings of the 21st BCS HCI Group Conference, HCI 2007, Lancaster University, 3-7 September 2007, British Computer Society, Volume 2.

• Futon Suri, J. (2004). Design Expression and Human Experience: Evolving Design Practice. in McDonagh, E. et al. (Eds) (p. 13-17) Design and Emotion. Taylor and Francis.

• Gaver, William (2009). Designing for emotion (among other things), Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 December 12; 364(1535): 3597–3604, doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0153.

• Norman, Donald. 2002. “Emotion and design: Attractive things work better”. Interactions Magazine, ix (4), 36-42.

• Norman, Donald. 2003. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.

• Oh, Wilson and Poh Wah Khong. 2003.“Competitive advantage through pleasurable products”. Pittsburgh: Proceedings of the DPPI ’03

• Rafaeli, Anat and Iris Vilnai-Yavetz. 2004. Emotion as a Connection of Physical Artifacts and Organizations. Organization Science 15 (6). (Jstor PDF).

• Ratner, Carl, (undated) A Cultural-Psychological Analysis of Emotions. This is a revised online version of an article published Culture and Psychology 2000, vol. 6, pp. 5-39.

• Spillers, F.: (2007). Emotion as a Cognitive Artifact and the Design Implications for Products That are Perceived As Pleasurable. PDF, retrieved 17:35, 26 April 2011 (CEST).