Emo Design

(Entry based of the reading of chapter three from Donald Norman's Emotional Design.)

There were so many points made in this chapter concerning each type of emotional design; Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective designs. I really think that the main points were just the explanations of each design. Visceral design is based pretty much on just the physical appearance of a product, i.e. fancy shaped water bottles. It also includes other senses like the feel or sound, most of which are based on first impressions. It's basically things you see and go "pretty" to. Behavioral design is the design style that Norman talked a lot about in his other works that were discussed in the last couple posts. It is not the appearance, it's the use and performance. Function, understandability, and usability describe the elements involved in behavioral designing. A good BD performs the function it is supposed to do- and does it well. His example of bad behavioral design is regular cylindrical batteries. Many times it's hard to figure out which way they go- he notes that the fact that they all go different ways is just a bad design. He states that a good behavioral design satisfies "the needs of the people who actually use the product." Lastly is Reflective design. This is centered on the message is conveys and "the meaning of a product or its use." He notes about reflective design that sometimes the reflective value of an item will mean more to the user than the actual ease of use, or behavioral aspect of the design. He says it is about prestige, rarity, and exclusiveness.

A noticeable thing that was different about this chapter than the previous chapters was that, on page 97, he admits that he appears to be contradicting himself while he was talking about how creative designs can be more popular than good behavioral designs. He goes on to say that he usually talks about behavioral designs and how human-centered, tested-and-true designing works best. Then he notes that this isn't exactly the best approach for visceral or reflective designing. This chapter was also organized differently. It was topically, yet seemed a bit more chaotic. Sometimes I thought his transitions were a bit rough. I think it makes sense that it would be like this, though, because he was covering a bit more broad topics than before.

I think that books are often deigned viscerally. The phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" may exist, but many people can't help thinking that "ooh, this book looks cool." In addition, every time I see a potted bamboo plant, I'm immediately drawn to it. Especially the curly stalked shoots. They don't serve any purpose in my room, yet I thought they were important enough to bring to my dorm. Calculators I have found are good behavioral designed items. When I first got my new calculator, I refused to use it because it was way more complex than my other one. (I went from a TI-83 to a TI-89 Titanium Edition.) When I finally forced myself to start using it (the features were so much more useful for calculus that I had to at least try it out!), I found out that it was much better in many ways. It wasn't about how cool I look with it (albeit I'm sure I look totally rad) or that it was such a beautifully crafted item (even though it is!!). Its functions are so useful that I have to love it. Finding a good reflective design is a bit tougher for me. The meaning is still a bit allusive. I think the iPod is a good example of an item that, no matter how good or bad the functions, owning one is almost the "it" thing to do. Just like many fashion designers. Sometimes people see a Marc Jacobs runway show, or even the RTW lines, and think that it's a mess. What is this designer doing? People spend the money to buy labels. It's not necessarily that the clothes are made better, the meaning makes it worth it to the customer. I also believe that magazines are part visceral, part behavioral, and part reflective. They reflectively use celebrities on the cover and tout designer labels. Behaviorally they aren't really hard to read, not to mention a table of contents is a behaviorally designed element. And viscerally they use bright colors and attractive models (for the most part) to win over your senses.