EMOTIONAL DESIGN DONALD A. NORMAN
Why we love (or hate) everyday thing
DONALD A. NORMAN
Donald A. Norman is an academic in the field of cognitive
science, design and usability engineering and a co-founder and consultant with
the Nielsen Norman Group. He is the author of the book The Design of Everyday
Things. Besides, he also is the author of twelve books, which have been
translated into twelve languages. This time, I will write about him, Donald A.
Norman Chapter 1-3 of Emotional Design : Why we love (or hate) the design of
everyday things. This book is quite good than Schiller’s First Letter because the
words in use is very simple and it is easier to understand. This book is about
how we view everyday lifestyle with overall things in our life on which we like
or dislike it. Moreover, it also about on how emotion related to design in our
everyday life.
First of all, before I start to elaborate the content of the
book, the first chapter is about attractive things works better. After reading
all chapters, I think the first chapter is the most interesting part because I
really understand it and very meaningful. The second chapter is about the
multiple faces of emotion and design. As last but not least ,the third chapter
is about the three level of design which are visceral, behavioural, and
reflective. All this chapter are related to each other.
Based on my reading, I found that the main point of the
content of the book is when we like to do something that we should do to focus
to have a good quality of result and satisfy it. In our daily life there are three
level system which are visceral, behavioural, and reflective. The suggestion
that human attributes result from three different levels of the brain are from
professors in the Psychology Department at Northwestern University which are,
the automatic, prewired layer is called the visceral level, the part that contains
the brain processes that control everyday behaviour known as behavioral level
and the speculation part of the brain or the reflective level. Mostly, the
visceral level is to make them feel comfortable and freedom. A person faces an experiences at many level,
but the only one may not at another.
While behavioral level is about experience with function and
performance skill. Performance means how it does usability of function to
describe how users understand how it works. If the product satisfied the three
of this criteria , then the result is positive effect and so the otherwise. From
this three criteria, reflective is the highest needed because we can reflect
the past and analyse it for our future. In design, reflective is a long-term of
feeling satisfaction produced by displaying and using a product. Therefore, all
this three level are very important because to designers this means that no
single product that can satisfy everyone.
When we are in the positive affect , it make the brain more
focus because at that time we are in arouses curiosity, creativity and make the
brain into an effective learning. Otherwise when in the negative affect, it
make the brian less focus and likely to see you are sad and anxious.
What role do these states have in design? Firstly, we should
be happy, relaxed, in a pleasant mood and more able to overlook and cope with
minor problem with a device. Second, when people in anxious, they are pretend to more focus and the designer must pay special attention to ensure that all
the information required is continually at hand, readily visible with clear
feedback about that the device is performing. One interesting effect of the
differences in thought processes of the two states is the impact upon the
design process itself. Firstly, creativity is good for the designer to be
relaxed and in a good mood. It also can warm up by telling jokes and playing
games. No criticism is allowed! Real product will transformed that have been
generated when creative stage is completed. Their anxiety helps them get the
work done.
When people is under high anxiety or known as high negative
affect, people will focus upon escape because natural response to push them harder.
Designer will never lack for things to do, for new approaches to explore. The only
way to satisfy a wide of variety of needs and preferences is to have a wide
variety of products. There have a conflict between emotion in design before real
product provide a continual set of conflict. A person may interpret at many
levels but what appeals at one level may not at another level. A successful
design has to excel at all levels and finished their task eventhough the task
is not easy. If the user of a product is satisfied it will give positive
emotion result and otherwise if user is frustrated, it will give negative
emotion result. Satisfying people’s true need in requirement of different
cultures, age groups, social and national requirement is difficult and that’s
why a distinction between needs and wants is important. Needs is necessary
where wants is person ask for. Needs are determined by task where wants are determine
by culture. In design, we tend to
associate emotion with beauty. We build attractive, colorful and cute things.
We like attractive things because of that way they make us a feel . In reality
life , it’s obvious seen that we like things that is attractive and dislike
ugly things. Emotions reflect our personal experience, associations and
memories. In muzium, miniature monuments or building exhibition are display not
only for the artistic quality but also their sentimental value, for memory and
history they have, in short for their emotion impact towards owners. Those of
us viewing it did not necessarily have emotional attachment to the objects.
Photographs have special emotion appeal when they start to
tell their stories. Personal photographs are mementos, reminders and social
instruments , allowing memories to be shared across time, place and people. Although
we like to look at photographs, we do not like to take the time to do the work
required to maintain them and keep them accessible. The design challenge is to
keep the virtues while removing the barriers which are make it easier to store,
send, and share. Make it easier to find just the desired pictures years after
they have been taken and put into storage. Those are not easy problem, but until
they are overcome, we will not raise the full benefits of photography. Then nostalgic
music set to a photo can evoke more feelings and memories of era in which the
photo was taken, and a spoken story can help others to interpret the meaning of
the photo, especially in the absence of the photographer.
In design, there is some permanent conflict among preferences
of the popular target audience. It is probably
necessary to have multiple versions of the different market segments and it is
also necessary to do rapid changes in the style and appearance the market
dictates. Making movie or art is complex and difficult process and usually best
design from a following great theme is
drive by one person. One thing that is very surely, the conflict will continue as long as the creators
of art, music and performance are not the same people as those who must pay to
get them into the world. A successful
product comes from test and revise whereas a great product that can change the
world comes from someone with clear vision.
Finally this is the summary of the three level :
v
Visceral – Appearance
v
Behavioral – Performance, function and well done
of use
v
Reflective – Personal satisfaction and memories
As a
conclusion, emotion always happened in our daily life and also can give negative or positive reaction and there are
there levels in our brain called visceral level,behavioral level and reflective
level. These levels related in each others and working in our life. Without
these, we can not think good idea to
produced some real of product.
(^_^).......(^_^)
