Sunday 24 July 2011

Don Norman: Emotional Design

        Norman said that beautiful things are better to be used. Then he proved his view with the following ideas: 1. Positive emotion is essential to efficiency of study, creativity and curiosity. 2. Anxiety can narrow the mind, to make it concentrate on details and even repeat works.
   It’s quite right that feelings and emotions can affect mind and ability. Like those people who feel comfortable when taking a exam always get better results than those who are over worried. Anxiety always makes people concentrate too much on one task to realize the big circumstances.
   Applying this theory onto product design could get a very good effect. For example, if we design the machines in the factory into pretty and comfortable looking, the workers in there will be much happier, which could then improve there working conditions. On the country, when opened a website, if customers see messy words all over the web page, probably, most of them will turn off their page immediately.
  When coming to the product analyze, there are three main points. The first is: what the product can do; the second is: how efficient the product could be to perform its job; the third is: how easy it is for users. Always, the third one will influence the first one deeply. For instance, some cars has so many functions, but in terms to use those functions, people have to be facing hundreds of buttons with confusing icons on them. In this situation, those functions the car has will not have their real effect anymore. As a result, Norman said that products that are pleasurable should be easily understood.
   As to design, there are three stages. One is instinct design—the appearance(visceral). The reason it’s called instinct design, is basically because human are visual animals. They have the instinct to observe and comprehend through the appearance.  The second one is behavior level—the pleasure and efficiency of using the product. With this stage, it’s important that whether it could complete its job efficiently and giving the user a pleasant experience. The last one is reflective stage—memory and product image. This stage is relating to long time using and brand. Only when a bond is build between products and customer, enough interactions are made, can the memory and emotions of the brand be formed.
   The challenge of product design is to understand the needs of the customers. Most of the time personal needs are quite different from the quiz result. Those subconscious have to be carefully observed in different circumstances the the products are used.
   
  

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