2nd assignment : why we love (or hate) everyday things

In the emotional design about why we love (or hate) everyday things book written by Donald A.Norman and inspired by the author of The Design Of Everyday Things described about the appliances that we apply in our daily life. Like for example in chapter one, Attractive things work better, Noam Tractinsky, An Israel Scientist making an investigation about how attractive things certainly should be preferred over ugly ones. Japanese researchers, Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Koshimura studied different layouts of controls for ATM. All versions of the ATM were identical in function, but some had the buttons and screens arranged attractively, the others unattractively. The Japanese found that the attractive ones were perceived to be easier to use. “ Aesthetic preferences are culturally dependent”, said Tractinsky. Herbert Read, who wrote numerous books on art and aesthetic stated, “it requires a somewhat mystical theory of aesthetic to find any necessary connection between beauty and function”. Attractive things do work better because people easily catch their eyes to the things that really do attract them such as, when the design of a products look more creative and beautiful, it attracts people to buy it without even care about the price because the feel that they should have and own it.

The author of this book research a project examining the interaction of affect, behaviour and cognition but he found that Tractinsky’s result bothered him. He found that emotions change the way human mind solves problems and the emotional system changes how the cognitive system operates. Most thought of emotions as a problem to be overcome by rational, logical thinking. Positive emotions are critical to learning, curiosity and creative thought. The psychologist Alice Isen and her colleagues have shown that being happy broadens the thought process and facilitates creative thinking. When you feel good, Isen discovered, you are better at brainstorming, at examining multiple, alternatives 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. In other words, happy people are more effective in finding alternative solutions and as a results, are tolerant of minor difficulties.

There are three different levels of the brain, the automatic, prewired layer called visceral level, the part that contains the brain processes that control everyday behaviour, known as the behavioural level and the contemplative part of the brain or the reflective level. The three level interact with one another. Everything we do has both a cognitive and an affective component. The affective state, whether positive or negative affect, changes how we think. When you are in a state of negative affect, feeling anxious or endangered, the neurotransmitters focus the brain processing. Positives affect arouses curiosity, engages creativity, and makes the brain into an effective learning organism. Someone who is relaxed, happy, in a pleasant mood, Is more creative, more able to overlook and cope with minor problems with a device. Too much anxiety produces a phenomenon known as “tunnel vision” where the people becomes so focused they may fail to see otherwise obvious alternatives. Basically, because of the extreme focus and tunnel vision induced by high anxiety, the situation has to be designed to minimize the need for creative thought.

Human language comes from the behavioural and reflective levels, it provides a good example of how biological predisposition mix with the experience. Emotions, moods, traits and personality are all aspects of the different ways in which people’s minds work, especially along the affective, emotional domain. Emotion change behaviour over a relatively short term, for they are responsive to the immediate events. The behavioural and reflective levels, however, are very sensitive to experiences, training and education.

There are a lot of explanations in chapter two about the multiple faces of emotion and design. Three different levels of the brain which is visceral, behavioural and reflective differ widely requirements for the design. The visceral level is pre-consciousness. This is where appearance matters and first impression are formed. Visceral design is about the initial impact of a product, about its appearance. The behavioural level is about use, about experience with a product. But experience itself has many facets which is function, performance and usability. Of the three levels, the reflective one is the most vulnerable to variability through culture, experience and education. Reflective design is about long-term relations, about the feelings of satisfaction produced by owning, displaying and using a product.

In the world of design, we tend to associate emotion with beauty. We build attractive, cute and colourful things. However important these attributes, they are not what drive people in their everyday lives. We like attractive things because of the way they make us. Some objects can evoked us a memories that happens in the past. Like a mementoes, postcard and souvenir monuments, for example the Eiffel Tower. These objects may remind us when we take a look for a moments and that make us think and reflect about the enjoyable and unforgettable experiences that we had when we visited that place. A photo also an object that captured a memory that we had for the past of our life. They are personal and they tell stories. The power of personal photography lies in its ability to transport the viewer back in time to some socially relevant events. This allowing memories to be shared across time, place and people. Amy Cowen, who wrote about Frohlich’s work, described its importance this way : “ With every photo there is a story, a moment, a memory. As time passes, however, the user’s ability to recall the details needed to evoke the moment the picture records fades. Adding sound to a photo can help keep the memories intact.”

In part two, explain more about the design in practice. Most of all, the part two explain in more details about the three levels of design which is visceral, behavioural and reflective. Each of the three levels of design plays its part in shaping our experience. Visceral design is what nature does. We are exquisitely tuned to receive powerful emotional signals form the environment that get interpreted automically at the visceral level. We can find visceral design in advertising, folk art and crafts and children’s items. Effective visceral design requires the skills of the visual and graphic artist and the industrial engineer. Behavioural design is all about use. Appearance and rational does not really matter but performances does. The four matter of good behavioural design are the function, understandability, usability and physical feel. There are two kinds of product development, enhancement and innovation. Enhancement means to take some existing product or service and make it better. Innovation provides a completely new way of doing something. Of the two, enhancement are much easier. Reflective-level operations often determine a person’s overall impression of a product. reflective design is really about long-term customer experiences. It is about service, about providing a personal touch and warm interaction.

In conclude, mostly this book explain about the basic tools of emotional design. Attractive things do work better. Attractiveness produces positive emotions, causing mental processes to be more creative, more tolerant of minor difficulties. The three levels of processing lead to three corresponding forms of design, the visceral, behavioural and reflective. Each plays a critical role in human behaviour, each equally critical role in design, marketing and use of product.