1.11 Conclusion
Through understanding the concepts of emotional design, from the theoretical to the practical, this chapter provides insight into the potential for designing from a human-centered perspective. The concepts presented here shed light on the importance of understanding our desired goals, frustrations, and pleasures when we interact with products in specific contexts. The kinds of emotions that arise can run the gamut from positive to negative, and influence how we respond to, think about, and use products. This information contributes to making insightful decisions about designing products for the people who use them.
Key Takeaways
The key takeaways from this chapter include:
- Understanding the range of theoretical discussions about people’s behaviours toward products including the frameworks of product pleasure and appeal, Kansei engineering, and emotionally durable design.
- Knowledge of the kinds of product roles and features that may give rise to emotional responses and a sense of meaning in product interactions.
- Recognition of the long-term value of designing for emotional attachment to products.
- Exposure to a range of multisensory emotional design approaches and elements for designing positive and negative emotionally influenced (also called affective) product experiences.
- Perception of the value of product semantics as a design tool for applying emotional meaning to product design features: for expressing ideas, describing actions, triggering responses, identifying with familiar concepts, and enhancing product meaning.
- Awareness of how products are integrated into daily routines and rituals, and the variety of experiences that provide an opportunity for meaningful stages of product use.
Chapter 1: Design for Emotion & Meaning
Reflection Time!
Instructions
- Type your reflections for the 3Ts below: Thoughts, Tips, and Tools.
- To download your reflections as a document, click EXPORT to open a summary preview, then click the export icon on the top right of the window.
- Use your reflections to recall the key ideas later and to apply them in future situations.
Supplementary Activities for this Chapter
The Sense-It! Activities are categorized according to the Catalyze, Learn, and Apply (CLA) model defining the intended learning outcomes of the different categories of activities. This learning model is described in more depth on page 8 of the booklet Sense-It! In Action: Facilitator’s Guide, along with descriptions of the Sense-It! Product Cards and Sense-It! Tiles. These supplementary resources can be downloaded here.
An overview of each of the Sense-It! Activities and instructions for facilitating them can be found on pages 10-19 of the Facilitators’ Guide. The activities designed to support this chapter can be found starting on page 16 of the Sense-It! Activities booklet.
The next chapter provides a more detailed approach to identifying design elements.
Key Words: Emotions, Emotional Durability, Affordances, Semantics, Emotional attachment, Design appeal, Routines and rituals, Affective product experiences, Product semantics
