Emotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents. The main issue is that emotions have a crucial role in the human ability to understand the world, and how they learn new things. For example, aesthetically pleasing objects appear to the user to be more effective, by virtue of their sensual appeal. The current book shows that "attractive things work better". Norman dabbles in cognitive, emotional, behavioral and neural science as he makes his key points, showing that "works better" is a multifaceted psychological, emotional, and neural concept. The thesis is much like the ones that permeate clinical psychology in the form of Cognitive-Behavioral therapies. However, the ideas contained here in inform product design, product choice, and product ownership. Why “The attractive things work better “ because yet in the early 1990s,two Japenese researches about the layout of control ATMs such as what the function,button,screen and finally the Japenese found that the attractive ones were perceive to be easier to use.
Donald A. Norman focuses this time on the aesthetics of objects and the impact it has on their usability. If you want people to use objects you design for them, you better make them look nice. Humans are emotional animals, our emotions and senses guide our lives. In Emotional Design, Donald A. Norman introduces the reader to the psychological underpinnings for this fundamental need, and finds that there are two other fundamental needs, too. These needs stem from the reflective, behavioral and visceral levels of cognition and affect. The visceral level is immediate and direct, reacting to the look, color or sound of a product and feeding in to the behavioral level. The behavioral level is concerned with how products function, and feeds in to and is affected by the reflective level. The reflective level is where we make value judgments, think about things, and where memory impacts our experiences.
In the first to three chapters of Emotional Design,Donald A.Norman presents his three-level theory of cognitive processing and discusses its potential importance to design. Donald A. Norman’s three levels of cognitive processing are visceral is the most immediate level of processing, in which we react to visual and other sensory aspects of a product that we can perceive before significant interaction occurs. Visceral processing helps us make rapid decisions about what is good, bad, safe, or dangerous. The visceral level is immediate and direct, reacting to the look, color or sound of a product.
In the chapter three, the visceral are related with the chapter two. What I am understand is the visceral design more to what the user feel because is about initial reaction and appearance works. That designing for visceral response is about designing beautiful things. Visceral design is actually about designing for affect that is, get the appropriate psychological or emotional response for a particular context rather than for aesthetics alone. Beauty and the feelings of transcendence and pleasure it evokes is really only a small part of the possible affective design palette. However, in the world of consumer products and services, where many of us work, attractive user interfaces are often appropriate. This is reaction the visceral designer strives for, and it can work. Much of traditional market research involves this aspect of design.
In most behavioural design, function comes first and foremost. The behavioral level is concerned with how products function and all about use. Designing for the behavioral level means designing product behaviors that complement a user’s own behaviors, implicit assumptions, and mental models. The three levels of design Norman contemplates, behavioral design is perhaps the most familiar to UX professionals, especially those working within the spheres of interaction design and usability. Behavioral processing, uniquely among his three levels, has direct influence upon and is influenced directly by both of the other two levels of processing. This would seem to imply that the day today behavioral aspects of interaction design should be the primary focus of our design efforts, with visceral and reflective considerations playing a supporting role. Getting behavioral design right assuming that we also pay adequate attention to the other levels provides our greatest opportunity for positively influencing the way users construct their experience with products.
Reflective level means the contemplative side based on interpretation and intellectualization. The Reflective level refers to the capability of quiet thought or contemplation. This level is influenced strongly by self-image, satisfaction, memory and the meaning of things. This level becomes more important as products mature. The least immediate level of processing, which involves conscious consideration and reflection on past experiences. Reflective processing can enhance or inhibit behavioral processing, but has no direct access to visceral reactions. This level of cognitive processing is accessible only via memory, not through direct interaction or perception. The most interesting aspect of reflective processing as it relates to design is that through reflection. In reflective design, Donald A.Norman uses several high concept designs for commodity products as examples such as impractically configured teapots and the striking Phillipe Starck juicer that graces the cover of his book. It is easy to see how such products value and purpose are, in essence, the aesthetic statements they make could appeal strongly to people’s reflective desire for uniqueness or cultural sophistication that perhaps may come from an artistic or stylish self-image.
The conclusion is overall I read this book based on my readings this is a very good book about the many levels of design and for the most part, a very good distillation of what is good and bad about product design of all kinds. It's subtly humorous and very detailed in its dissection of what makes up a user experience.