1.7 Emotional Design Elements

The term affordance is used by psychologists who study how people perceive situations and things. The concept of an affordance was coined by psychologist James J. Gibson in his seminal book, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966). The concept was introduced to the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community by Donald Norman in his book, The Design of Everyday Things (1988, 2013). Norman argued that instructions and labels are unnecessary if people understand how to engage with and use a product by interpreting the product’s affordances. Norman described the affordances or elements of the designed object or service that communicate its purpose and operation as signifiers. The features of well-designed objects communicate or signify to a user what it can be used for (or what uses it affords); hence a door handle is considered an affordance. For example, if you see a light switch, it acts as a signifier to indicate that by toggling it, the light will go on.

Design Affordances

Affordances provide clues about how an object should be used, typically provided by the object itself or its context. Even if you’ve never seen a coffee mug before, the handle intuitively signifies its intended use. It is shaped for easy grasping and other elements in the design act as signifiers, similar to how the large opening at the top of a bottle with an empty well inside communicates that this is a volume waiting to be filled with liquid. Of course, these affordances depend on previous cultural experiences. Affordances are a specific case of product semantics, which we discuss next.

Product affordances on a game controller

Product Semantics

The term product semantics was coined by Krippendorf and Butter in 1984 to describe the study of the communicative properties of manufactured objects; what they signify to users about their operation and appropriate social contexts. In industrial design, the term product semantics usually refers to the ability of a form, surface texture, pattern, material, or colour to convey the intended purpose of a product or the environment in which it is used. Symbolic properties of form can express meaning when we have prior knowledge that enables us to interpret the code or message designed into the product.

THIS SPATULA USES AN EGG METAPHOR

Krippendorf (2006) notes that meanings can be designed into and derived from products in a range of ways. While using a product, we may associate similar ways to use it with other products, visual metaphors, and conceptual models we already have, or we may associate it with familiar affordances and use scenarios. For example, a kitchen chair can be used as a perfect step ladder to reach pots and pans stored on higher shelves, not just to sit on. We also share cultural ideas about aesthetics, group identity, institutional qualities, common metaphors, and narratives. For example, if someone told you that they have a stupid pencil sharpener or a nasty screwdriver, you’d likely interpret both of those descriptions as negative.

Product semantics are symbolic properties that convey meanings that play upon the users’ prior knowledge. Since the designer is not there when you are interacting with the product, the use of the object must be self-explanatory, which is also known as a self-sign. Self-explanatory products send a message to you through signs and clues encoded into the product, expressed through features such as form, surface texture, pattern, material, or colour. These design clues reinforce your perception of what that product is communicating. Design clues are called signifiers because, like Norman’s definition, they are associated with known experience and product interaction. For example, red car brake lights are signifiers of a red stop sign or red stop light; they say STOP. How do you think traffic lights get across the message that it’s okay to start driving? What traffic light features are signifiers that send you the message to stop, to go, to slow down?

THE CAR LIGHTS SEND THE MESSAGE– STOP

Krippendorf (2006) asserts that interpreting design clues is dependent on the appeal of one of three modes of our attention, as users:

1. Recognition: our ability to identify the clue and how it can be used.
2. Exploration: our ability to figure out how to operate something, how it works, and what to do to achieve desired outcomes.
3. Reliance: our ability to intuitively recognize the clues without having to pay close attention to how to use the product.

3 MODES OF USER ATTENTION

Theorists like Krippendorf and Vihma (2003) say that you can perceive product semantics through design elements that consciously rely on form factors (this is a design expression to describe formal or 3-dimensional product features) that remind you of another familiar emotional response such as:

• Imitating the form of a tough hammer to impart the spirit, character, feel, or emotional memory of a rugged product.
• Borrowing a form factor from another product to indicate that this product works similarly, like a game remote that looks like a boat steering wheel.
• Using form factors that are already in the environment where the product will be used, such as in an office or a workshop.

Not only does the concept of product semantics refer to the encoded clues in the product design features, but it also refers to the quality of the relationship between you and an artefact. Did you know that the ability to apply product semantic elements in design differentiates designers from other professionals involved in product development? Our ability as designers is to observe users, understand their conceptual frameworks, and incorporate design elements. These elements communicate unspoken messages that enable us to figure out how to interact with products, services, or environments in familiar ways, even if the product is new or unfamiliar.

In fact, product semantic design elements that carry over from an earlier model of a product can contribute to our acceptance of the new version of that product. This is a design strategy that plays on familiarity with the initial product, making it easier for us to decode the meaning, accept, and interact with the more advanced product. While it can also be considered manipulative, by encouraging us to buy the newer product, it can also be considered supportive by making it easier to transition to the newer product.

SIMILAR OVAL FORM FACTORS CARRIED OVER TO NEW WIRELESS EARBUDS