1.3 The allure of emotional and sensory impressions

It is common knowledge that marketers believe that design can help seduce consumers into purchasing “cool” products. As we just learned, consumers may respond to the messages behind products with visceral, behavioural, and reflective responses. A toothbrush that looks like a dragon may be appealing to kids because it seems fun and playful, while a baseball cap with your favourite team logo may draw upon deeper childhood memories. Designers may play upon the concept of ideo-pleasure to design sustainable products such as sun hats made of upcycled plastics to seduce environmentally conscious consumers. An emotional design approach may also contribute to designing assistive devices like canes or even eyeglasses that fit into fashionable trends to make them seem cool. In these cases, the emotional appeal comes from the added qualities that resemble meaningful and familiar products from the past (Schütte et al, 2009). Have you ever experienced strong emotional bonds with your favourite or special possessions, whereas other products are insignificant to you?

Did you know that people often strive to take better care of products that they are attached to, and they even exhibit protective behaviours towards them (Schütte, et al, 2009)? Just think about how you feel about sharing your favourite coffee mug or even your cell phone! That feeling of “it’s mine” is referred to as product attachment. Imagine how important it is for companies like Apple, Sony, or BMW  to have their customers attached to their products and services. In a study on the value of understanding people’s emotions as drivers for product design, marketers identified the importance of learning about emotional reactions to existing products as a way of identifying the design aspects that can be enhanced with “additional positive emotional impact” (Yoon et al, 2014).

Designers may be tasked with adding features that contribute to the kinds of product appeal concepts discussed earlier that could contribute to product attachment:

1. Pleasure, where a product provides you with physio-pleasure (such as a car, stereo, or ski equipment).
2. Self-expression, where a product provides ideo-pleasure by expressing your unique identity (clothing, shoes, or vehicles).
3. Group affiliation, where a product provides socio-pleasure by displaying your belonging to a group (wedding ring, university sweatshirt, or a Harley Davidson).
4. Evoking memories, where a product provides reflective stimulation by reminding you of the past (leather jacket, heirloom, or tea cup) (Schütte, et al, 2009).

 PRODUCTS may be APPEALING FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

The potential for product attachment is often considered in the early stages of product development. In the twentieth century, the Mazda Motor Corporation developed a design research method they called Kansei Engineering to improve the emotional appeal of their car design features. A Kansei quality refers to “the [sensory] impressions somebody gets from a certain artefact, environment, or situation using all her or his senses of vision, hearing, feeling, smell, and taste, as well as her or his cognition” (Schütte et al, 2009, p. 477-496). The Kansei approach is based on the belief that positive impressions contribute to better emotional responses that may promote product attachment.

Mazda’s approach uses design research that measures and analyses users’ subjective psychological or physiological reactions to the design qualities of a particular thing – the interior of the Mazda Miata car, for example – for the purposes of designing better qualities. This kind of design research has proven useful for appealing to people’s preferences by differentiating mature products from newer competitive products that may be similar in function, price point, and performance, especially in the design of vehicles. Some design theorists call this a lifestyle-design approach.