Emotional Designs by Donald Norman

In the video ‘Donald Norman on Emotional Design’, Donald Norman started off by telling the audience how his new life is to understand what beauty is about making things neat and fun. He gave an example of stuff he thinks is pretty to look at like the Philippe Starck juicer and a cutting knife that’s made from Japan. The Knife has a really beautiful aesthetics, it feels really good to hold onto and it performs really well when cutting. This example leads to his theory of emotion, which includes three components – Visceral Experience, Behavioral and Reflective.

He explained how the subconscious mind happens with an example on Google’s website, how they show the pages of results with the amount of ‘o’s which makes it looks pleasant but we do not realize. “Pleasant things works better”

He talked about a psychologist who did an experiment on two groups of students, and how one group was just told to solve the problem whereas the other group had a box of candy before the experiment which made them happier and that made them solve the problem. He explained that when a person is happy, they are more susceptible to interruption, which makes the person think outside the box, which means when you’re happy, you are more creative.

Visceral level, you look at the aesthetics of a product, not the function. Like the example Don made in the video, some people buy the water bottle for the bottle, not because of the water. They use it as a decoration which is called a visceral experience.

Behavioral level, when user uses a product, they feel like they are in control of it when using. He gave an example of a teapot which has three steps to use it. Putting it horizontally at first which means the tea is brewing then it’s put slanted which means it is done brewing. And when it is finished, it’s put upright which gives out an emotion, a signal to the waiter for more water.

Reflective level, a little voice in your head that tells you if it’s good or bad, like an environmental friendly car, you buy it because you want to show that you care about it.