Emotions in Design

Do you think feelings when designing?

Feelings (or Emotions) are strong differentiators in defining user experiences today. It triggers unconscious responses to a product, website, environment or interface. Malcolm Galdwell in “blink” tells us the power of the trained mind to make split second decisions in the unconscious state. Our feelings influence our perceptions and often makes us frame how we think about or refer to our experiences at a later date.

It is important to consider what feelings are you designing for. Ask about how the user feels. Emotions don’t necessarily define a successful User Experience, however it made the iPhone the iPhone.

“Emotion plays a powerful role in our lives and has gained significant attention as a priority area of study in interaction design”
- Golman & Jordan

Emotions and thinking seem so different. UX Professionals have trained themselves to focus on the critical functional flaws while ignoring emotions completely. After all, usability is about functional aspects of design — does it work? Is it ready to use? Is it easy to understand? Is it intuitive? Ever wonder how does one feel?

Emotion design is important because, after all, you make decisions based on feelings, perceptions, values and reflections that usually come form your unconscious mind.

Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better, by Don Norman is great read.