I can still remember the first time I read Norman’s book was 2 years ago, at time I was still an Industrial Design student in College. The book’s name is 《the Psychology of Everyday Things》，which gave me a great inspiration for Product Design.
This time I got the chance to read his article again, which makes me feel so exciting and grateful. And, I should say the article I read today is just so awesome!
The tile is 《Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better》.
First, I summarized the following point that I was inspired:
- I simply wanted to position usability in its proper place in the design world: equal to beauty, equal to function: equal, but not superior.
- The cognitive system interprets and makes sense of the world. Each system impacts the other: some emotions — affective states — are driven by cognition, and cognition is impacted by affect.
- A short summary is that good human-centered design practices are most essential for tasks or situations that are stressful: distractions, bottlenecks, and irritations need to be minimized.
- In pleasant, positive situations, people are much more likely to be tolerant of minor difficulties and irrelevancies. In other words, although poor design is never excusable, when people are in a relaxed situation, the pleasant, pleasurable aspects of the design will make them more tolerant of difficulties and problems in the interface.
- In other words, when we feel good, we overlook design faults.
- Designs intended for stressful situations have to pay special attention to matching the needs of the users, to making appropriate actions salient and easy to apply. In other words, the principles of good human-centered design are especially important in stressful situations.
- True beauty in a product has to be more than skin deep, more than a façade. To be truly beautiful, wondrous, and pleasurable, the product has to fulfill a useful function, work well, and be usable and understandable.
The following Mind-Mapping shows my understanding of Norman’s points of view
I think our designers should focus more on people’s emotions and feelings instead of just thinking about product’s functions.
In the 19th century, the famous American architect Louis Sullivan once put forward the idea of “Form following function.” The idea is that design should focus on function, and the form of the item changes with function. That is to say, everything is practical, and all artistic expressions must be shaped around functions.
However, now I consider that “functions should follow human’s emotions”. Just as the title said “ Design for emotion ”.
