Emotional Design

Metadata

• Author: Don Norman
• Full Title: Emotional Design
• Category: #books

Highlights

• In this book, I argue that the emotional side of design may be more critical to a product's success than its practical elements. (Location 51)
• One side effect of today's technologically advanced world is that it is not uncommon to hate the things we interact with. (Location 75)
• emotion is a necessary part of life, affecting how you feel, how you behave, and how you think. Indeed, emotion makes you smart. That's the lesson of my current research. Without emotions, your decision-making ability would be impaired. Emotion is always passing judgments, presenting you with immediate information about the world: (Location 106)
• affective system provides critical assistance to your decision making by helping you make rapid selections between good and bad, reducing the number of things to be considered. (Location 129)
• We have long known that when people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentrating upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem. Isen's results show that when people are relaxed and happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative. (Location 169)
• everything you do has both a cognitive and an affective component-cognitive to assign meaning, affective to assign value. You cannot escape affect: it is always there. More important, the affective state, whether positive or negative affect, changes how we think. (Location 232)
• Design-and for that matter, most problem solving-requires creative thinking followedby a considerable period of concentrated, focused effort. In the first case, creativity, it is good for the designer to be relaxed, in a good mood. Thus, in brainstorming sessions, it is common to warm up by telling jokes and playing games. No criticism is allowed because it would raise the level of anxiety among the participants. Good brainstorming and unusual, creative thinking require the relaxed state induced by positive affect.Once (Location 248)
• design is meant to enhance some critical procedure or function-say to enable control room operators to watch over a plant and solve problems as they arise-so it is probably best to have a neutral or a slightly negative affect to keep people aroused and focused. This calls for an attractive, pleasant environment so that in normal monitoring, the operators are creative and open to explore new situations. (Location 256)
• One person's acceptance is another one's rejection. Worse, what is appealing at one moment may not be at another.The source of this complexity can be found in the three levels of processing. At the visceral level, people are pretty much the same all over the world. (Location 315)
• T H I S STORY shows the several levels of the cognitive and emotional system-visceral, behavioral, and reflective-at work, fighting among themselves. (Location 330)
• Visceral design is about the initial impact of a product, about its appearance, touch, and feel. (Location 339)
• The behavioral level is about use, about experience with a product. But experience itself has many facets: function, performance, and usability. (Location 340)
• It is only at the reflective level that consciousness and the highestlevels of feeling, emotions, and cognition reside. It is only here that the full impact of both thought and emotions are experienced. At the lower visceral and behavioral levels, there is only affect, but without interpretation or consciousness. Interpretation, understanding, and reasoning come from the reflective level. (Location 344)
• Reflective design, therefore, is about long-term relations, about the feelings of satisfaction produced by owning, displaying, and using a product. (Location 352)
• The only way to satisfy a wide variety of needs and preferences is to have a wide variety of products. Many product categories specialize, each catering to a different (Location 380)
• We should stop to consider just why it is popular. People find value in it. It satisfies some basic need. Those who deride kitsch are looking at the wrong aspects. (Location 443)
• The Meaning of Things, a book that should be required reading for designers, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Balton study what makes things special. (Location 453)
• In the early 1950s, the Betty Crocker Company introduced a cake mix so that people could readily make excellent tasting cakes at home. No muss, no fuss: just add water, mix, and bake. The product failed, even though taste tests confirmed that people liked the result. Why? An after-the-fact effort was made to find the reasons. As the market researchers Bonnie Goebert and Herma Rosenthal put it: "The cake mix was a little too simple. The consumer felt no sense of accomplishment, no involvement with the product. It made her feel useless, especially if somewhere her aproned mom was still whipping up cakes from scratch."Yes, it was too easy to make the cake. Betty Crocker solved the problem by requiring the cook to add an egg to the mix, thereby putting pride back into the activity. Clearly, adding an egg to a prepared cake mix is not at all equivalent to baking a cake "from scratch" by using individual ingredients. Nonetheless, adding the egg gave the act of baking a sense of accomplishment, whereas just mixing water into the cake mix seemed too little, too artificial. Goebert and Rosenthal summarized the situation: "The real problem had nothing to do with the product's intrinsic value, but instead represented the emotional connection that links a product to its user." Yes, it's all about emotion, about pride, about the feeling of accomplishment, even in making a cake from a prepared mix. (Location 545)
• A shop assistant should probably not discuss the philosophical implications of quality in automobiledesign, quoting from R. M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance whenever a repair is attempted.Personality (Location 559)
• That's the design challenge-to discover real needs that even the people who need them cannot yet articulate. (Location 733)

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title: Emotional Design longtitle: Emotional Design author: Don Norman url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2012-01-03 type: books tags:

Emotional Design

Metadata

• Author: Don Norman
• Full Title: Emotional Design
• Category: #books

Highlights

• In this book, I argue that the emotional side of design may be more critical to a product's success than its practical elements. (Location 51)
• One side effect of today's technologically advanced world is that it is not uncommon to hate the things we interact with. (Location 75)
• emotion is a necessary part of life, affecting how you feel, how you behave, and how you think. Indeed, emotion makes you smart. That's the lesson of my current research. Without emotions, your decision-making ability would be impaired. Emotion is always passing judgments, presenting you with immediate information about the world: (Location 106)
• affective system provides critical assistance to your decision making by helping you make rapid selections between good and bad, reducing the number of things to be considered. (Location 129)
• We have long known that when people are anxious they tend to narrow their thought processes, concentrating upon aspects directly relevant to a problem. This is a useful strategy in escaping from danger, but not in thinking of imaginative new approaches to a problem. Isen's results show that when people are relaxed and happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative. (Location 169)
• everything you do has both a cognitive and an affective component-cognitive to assign meaning, affective to assign value. You cannot escape affect: it is always there. More important, the affective state, whether positive or negative affect, changes how we think. (Location 232)
• Design-and for that matter, most problem solving-requires creative thinking followedby a considerable period of concentrated, focused effort. In the first case, creativity, it is good for the designer to be relaxed, in a good mood. Thus, in brainstorming sessions, it is common to warm up by telling jokes and playing games. No criticism is allowed because it would raise the level of anxiety among the participants. Good brainstorming and unusual, creative thinking require the relaxed state induced by positive affect.Once (Location 248)
• design is meant to enhance some critical procedure or function-say to enable control room operators to watch over a plant and solve problems as they arise-so it is probably best to have a neutral or a slightly negative affect to keep people aroused and focused. This calls for an attractive, pleasant environment so that in normal monitoring, the operators are creative and open to explore new situations. (Location 256)
• One person's acceptance is another one's rejection. Worse, what is appealing at one moment may not be at another.The source of this complexity can be found in the three levels of processing. At the visceral level, people are pretty much the same all over the world. (Location 315)
• T H I S STORY shows the several levels of the cognitive and emotional system-visceral, behavioral, and reflective-at work, fighting among themselves. (Location 330)
• Visceral design is about the initial impact of a product, about its appearance, touch, and feel. (Location 339)
• The behavioral level is about use, about experience with a product. But experience itself has many facets: function, performance, and usability. (Location 340)
• It is only at the reflective level that consciousness and the highestlevels of feeling, emotions, and cognition reside. It is only here that the full impact of both thought and emotions are experienced. At the lower visceral and behavioral levels, there is only affect, but without interpretation or consciousness. Interpretation, understanding, and reasoning come from the reflective level. (Location 344)
• Reflective design, therefore, is about long-term relations, about the feelings of satisfaction produced by owning, displaying, and using a product. (Location 352)
• The only way to satisfy a wide variety of needs and preferences is to have a wide variety of products. Many product categories specialize, each catering to a different (Location 380)
• We should stop to consider just why it is popular. People find value in it. It satisfies some basic need. Those who deride kitsch are looking at the wrong aspects. (Location 443)
• The Meaning of Things, a book that should be required reading for designers, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Balton study what makes things special. (Location 453)
• In the early 1950s, the Betty Crocker Company introduced a cake mix so that people could readily make excellent tasting cakes at home. No muss, no fuss: just add water, mix, and bake. The product failed, even though taste tests confirmed that people liked the result. Why? An after-the-fact effort was made to find the reasons. As the market researchers Bonnie Goebert and Herma Rosenthal put it: "The cake mix was a little too simple. The consumer felt no sense of accomplishment, no involvement with the product. It made her feel useless, especially if somewhere her aproned mom was still whipping up cakes from scratch."Yes, it was too easy to make the cake. Betty Crocker solved the problem by requiring the cook to add an egg to the mix, thereby putting pride back into the activity. Clearly, adding an egg to a prepared cake mix is not at all equivalent to baking a cake "from scratch" by using individual ingredients. Nonetheless, adding the egg gave the act of baking a sense of accomplishment, whereas just mixing water into the cake mix seemed too little, too artificial. Goebert and Rosenthal summarized the situation: "The real problem had nothing to do with the product's intrinsic value, but instead represented the emotional connection that links a product to its user." Yes, it's all about emotion, about pride, about the feeling of accomplishment, even in making a cake from a prepared mix. (Location 545)
• A shop assistant should probably not discuss the philosophical implications of quality in automobiledesign, quoting from R. M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance whenever a repair is attempted.Personality (Location 559)
• That's the design challenge-to discover real needs that even the people who need them cannot yet articulate. (Location 733)