Video reflection2: Emotional design

Don Norman makes the message clear to me that design isn’t totally about function anymore. For something to work is already taken for granted in this day and age so the new idea now is to look at the spaces for work there are in functional products. Throw his speech he gives a great many examples of products which don’t necessarily work one hundred percent efficiently but simply pleases people whilst they interact or visualise it.

Fun and beautiful in essence, is purpose of emotional design. Don Norman mentions the famous lemon juicer by Philippe Starck; it doesn’t work too well and he clearly stated that he doesn’t have it in the kitchen but instead at the front door. To why people would even want to buy it may be simply the fact that it’s different to other lemon juicers. Don explains that it’s simply good to look at, putting beauty at first makes people have an emotional response that the product is fun or pleasant to have due to the fact that we’ve never had one as such. Similar explanation was given to the Hummers which remind me the importance of how a design can stand out amongst the experiences of each person with past products.

Don mentions behavioural responses created by design is what makes people enjoy using it as they feel in control and quite frankly people become satisfied or pleased when we feel we are in control of things. But in my opinion an even greater pleasure is being fun by being aesthetically pleasing; if two of the same products do the same job except one is ugly and one is not, the answer is obvious that the aesthetically pleasing one would be more popular. It is very natural that our minds react in such a way; always hoping to enjoy what we do so if our minds tell us the item in hand is special and stands out of those usual impressions we should enjoy using it (depending on whether it actually is pleasing to look at or interact with).

This Ted talk has raised my attention to every possible reaction a product has to us when we look around. I hope to be able to use these experiences and apply them into my future design practices to attempt to join the pleasurable design hype which I believe to be the vibe of modern product designs.