Emotional Design — Do you communicate with users with emotion?
“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”
–Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
How is design closely related to users' emotions?
Designing with emotion forms communication with customers. By predicting how users interact with a product and the way they feel can help ease communication. Everything around us is designed on purpose to evoke different feelings when we use it. These feelings are then transformed into emotions, then we might feel happy, frustrated, satisfied, bored or hatred, as we experience more with the environment, changes around us.
As the saying goes: “UX design considers how a user interacts with and responds to an interface, service or product.” It does not matter if a product has UX, emotions are always there. So to be a better designer, connecting with customers' emotions in a more positive way remains crucial in the daily job.
What is emotional design
Did you ever wonder why cheap beer tastes better in fancy cans? Why sales of Macintosh computers soared when Apple introduced the colorful iMac? In Norman’s book: Emotional Design, he explained 3 different levels of design that can capture what we need to create exceptional products: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective.
Visceral emotional design:
“I want it. It looks amazing, so will I.” This is similar with love at first sight, the minute you first land your eyes on the product, you feel positive and instinctual emotions to interact with it and explore more, you’re on the right track! The visceral design also affects the perception of your product’s credibility, trustworthiness, quality, appeal, and even perceived ease of use.
Behavioral emotional design:
This is the stage we designers make the users feel smart and in control of the product. It is not only to look good but also perform well. Good behavioral design meets user needs and pain points in a more elegant way. Good behavioral design is like a symphony: when different instruments in the system that comes together harmoniously, good things happen. The other way? Disaster.
Reflective emotional design:
“It completes me. I can tell stories about it (and me).” This is usually related to the personality product brings, which can resonate with users in a positive way that users are willing to share the story with the product. When I worked as an intern at the Cortana team, a personal intelligent assistant by Microsoft, the best experience I have was when I helped with hosting a 3rd-year anniversary party for Cortana. We had 200+ users coming together to celebrate, they were really emotionally connected with the product and they really cared how Cortana was going to develop in the future. Buying and using a product creates a sense of status in society, it’s about socioeconomic status. Your customers ask: “Is it beautiful? Was it a pleasure to use? Did it make my life easier? How do I look using it, driving it, wearing it?” Do your customers “bond” with your product?
