Emotional Design

"Adult humans like to explore experiences far beyond the basic, biologically wired-in preferences. Thus, although bitter tastes are viscerally disliked (presumably because many poisons are bitter), adults have learned to eat and drink numerous bitter things, even to prefer them. This is an "acquired taste," so called because people have had to learn to overcome their natural inclination to dislike them. So, too, with crowded, busy spaces, or noisy ones, and discordant, non-harmonic music, sometimes with irregular beats: all things that are viscerally negative, but that can be reflectively positive. The principles underlying visceral design are wired in, consistent across people and cultures. If you design according to these rules, your design will always be attractive, even if somewhat if simple. If you design for the sophisticated, for the reflective level, your design can readily become dated because this level is sensitive to cultural differences, trends in fashion, and continual fluctuation. Today's sophistication runs the risk of becoming tomorrow's discard. Great designs, like great art and literature, can break the rules and survive forever, but only a few are gifted enough to be great." - Norman [67]

This passage was the most interesting part of the chapter, due to its effect on the reader. I had an epiphany-like experience while reading this passage. Most of the things that Norman spoke of made a lot of sense. The fact that bitter things displease us as human beings, since it is not viscerally positive. We are used to searching for the sweet scent or taste, so when we smell or taste something different, the response is usually negative. This is also true with music, because I stopped by the Fine Arts Building and heard someone playing a tune. Some of his chords sounded "bitter", so the first instinct was to label the chord as a mistake, but really it flowed with the song.

The terms visceral design, behavioral design and reflective design are useful to me as a reader. Norman is able to discuss his definitions of the words throughout the chapter successfully, so there is no problem. For someone who had not read the chapter, the terms may be confusing. If I had to rename the terms, I would use Appearance instead of Visceral, Function instead of Behavioral, and Message for Reflective.

I believe that a designer would have to look at the rest of the market in terms of products that already exist and decide what he/she wants to make the main focus of the design. For example, if a refrigerator designer saw that all of the competition made refrigerators rectangular, he would add more detail to the rectangular shape for visceral, add more compartments to the rectangular shape for behavioral, or make the refrigerator circular or triangular for reflective design. Most reflective products are usually reflective and visceral or reflective and behavioral. Referring back to the conversation on Monday, in terms of shoes, consumers buy Jordans for the behavioral aspect as well for the reflective design. Most wear Jordans in order to stay in style, well others wear Jordans for its comfort or the stability.

Norman 18 Years Later

The main points of the article would be the use of visceral, behavioral, and reflective design. Visceral design is defined as a natural design to a product. With a natural design, there also brings a natural attraction to a product from the consumer. Norman gives the examples of flowers and fruits in terms of their preparations for seed movement. The flowers evolve to have a sweet scent, so the birds and bees would be attracted. The same goes for fruit, where most fruit are sweet, so that the mammals would be able to spread the seeds around. The key factors to an effective visceral design would be shape, form and the aesthetics. The next is behavioral design. Behavioral design is defined as a product created just for function and use. The appearance of the product is not important in comparison to visceral design. The behavioral design's effectiveness is measured in innovation and enhancement. The example given by Norman in this chapter for behavioral design is cup holders in automobiles. When cars were first created, there was no need for cup holders, because the innovation of mobility was enough for society. Since having a car was the "norm"[the U-shaped correlation of technology], the companies were forced to add something to new to appease to the consumer. The last level of design is reflective design. Reflective design is defined as a product of use for cultural design, or a product to deliver a message. Norman contrasts two different digital watches in terms of reflective design. The square-face watch is different in terms of design, which might attract many.

The writing in this chapter is very similar to his writing eighteen years before in The Design of Everyday Things. The examples that he uses in Emotional Design are more up-to-date, which makes the reading more relevant. This ties back to the point that Hannah brought up in class last week. Also, Norman's writing seems to be of more psychology than design. This may be because of the topic of the paper, but it is a notable difference between the two books. There are still some similarities though. Norman still uses the idea of conceptual versus actual models in both chapters. This chapter introduces sections to explain the findings of his case studies. In the Design of Everyday Things chapter, Norman talked about his findings as just examples.

The use of the three level design is apparent in today's culture. Not to be shallow, but one visceral design would be women, nowadays. Most celebrity females are only seen for their aesthetics instead of their talent. Companies know that women attract men to products, so sexuality is used in advertisement. In terms of behavioral, music collecting consumers prefer a 80 Gigabyte iPod instead of a 4 Gigabyte, due to the function of storage. The 4 Gigabyte may look better due to its small design, but the 80 gigabyte carries more space for more music and video. With reflective, in New York, many people wear Gucci and Prada and Louis Vuitton shoes. When comparing their design to other sneakers, the high-fashion brand are not as great. Even with this being true, most will choose the high-fashion brand, due to the prestige that comes along with it. Like Norman described earlier in the chapter, "if it is expensive, it must be special". This is the impression most consumers have in terms of the shoes.

The Design Part Two

"I stand at the blackboard in my office, talking with a student, when my telephone rings. Once, twice it rings. I pause, trying to complete my sentence before answering. The ringing stops. "I'm sorry," says the student. "Not your fault," I say. "But it's no problem, the call now transfers to my secretary's phone. She'll answer it." As we listen we hear her phone start to ring. Once, twice. I look at my watch. Six o' clock: it's late, the office staff has left for the day. I rush out of my office to my secretary's phone, but as I get there, it stops ringing. "Ah," I think, "it's being transferred to another phone."... In fact, I could have retrieved the call from my office, had I acted quickly enough."

This passage was one of the most interesting, due to the paradox of ease of use versus innovation. The call forwarding function on the phone was made for those office workers who were out of the room or out of town, allowing callers to reach another line. This was made so that businessmen or women would not miss any important calls. The irony of this story is that Norman actually created more work for himself by chasing the phone call from one line to the next instead of taking two seconds out of his time to answer the call initially.

Although the book was published twenty years ago, the same rules apply in today's society. Companies want to keep "pushing the envelope" in terms of technology. As time advances, so must technology. The market is created for obsolescence, so that every year something new has to come out. Due to this time constraint, developers do not have as much time to test these products. This is why most companies advertise surveys for consumers to complete, but usually no one fills them out. If there is no feedback generated, then the companies continue to follow with the same design.

The factors would be used to evaluate the design of a product would be style, size, simplicity, affordance, cost, conceptual verus actual model, visibility in terms of function, shape, slickness of the material, sharpness of the design, color, durability, and separation of functions. Products are usually made smaller in order to conserve more space. With a smaller design, there is a less space for buttons, knobs, and controls. Although it is better for the size, if there are too many actions assigned to one control, the outcomes might be unfortunate.

Wait, How Do I Open The Door

After reading the first chapter of this book, the author seems to be hitting a few key points for the guidelines of design. The first would be visibility. Since the human mind needs clues to interpret use and functionality, the design must have some visible aspects in order for people to figure out how to work it. The door example that Norman gives makes sense, since it has happened to many people before. If there is no door handle or indication of how it should be opened, then the user will be lost and might just walk away. Basically, great quality design needs an easy interface in order to allow consumers to use the product with ease instead of struggling with frustration and confusion. The next key point that Norman discussed was affordance, as in what the product looks like it is for versus its actual function. Designers have to take in account what each material can be used for and make the product accordingly. Another key point was the amount of parts that society considers "everyday" things. Also, the functions need to be clearly mapped out in terms of design. If a consumer can not distinguish what each part's function is, the simplicity is lost. The product needs to have a high degree of usability, and the concept must match the product. The last key point would be feedback. With the feedback, the designing team will know what works and what does not.

One object of difficult use would probably be the Epson printer that was purchased for this laptop. Just to load paper, there were at least 7 steps. The whole set-up process was ridiculously confusing. After the paper was loaded, the cartridges needed to be loaded. Instead of having the normal "black" and "color" cartridges, it has the old school CMYK cartridges. After all of that, the paper jammed during the print test. The problem is that Epson printers are not user-friendly. The conceptual model was not the same as the one in practice.

The designers of the iPod addressed the principles that Norman discussed, but in reverse order. The feedback from other MP3 players were the most important concept for Apple, since the designers would have the edge of history on its side. Apple would be able to captialize on the strengths while improve on the weaknesses. Also, the interface is user-friendly, so consumers of all ages will be able to enjoy it.

The Perfect Post

The article "The Perfect Thing" by Steven Levy is an interesting overview of the technological design business. Fadell's experiences with the electronics business, along with his trials with the model iPod shows the whole "guess-and-check"-like process. He moved from company to company in order to find somewhere that worked for him. It was the same thing for the model iPod. He had to continously try to figure out how to be innovative, yet functional. Due to the other failures on the market, Fadell was able to learn from the mistakes or setbacks of the other products.

As for the factors for creating and evaluating the "perfect thing" would be to follow the pathway that Fadell took. This is, to research the rest of the products on the markets, look at the drawbacks, find a way to improve them, and ultimately make them better while adding something new. It sounds difficult, but that is what separates the "men from the boys" metaphorically. The factors for evalauting success with a MP3 player would be size/shape/mobility, storage, ease of use in terms of the interface and the programming software, sound quality, price, battery life, and overall popularity in terms of advertisement. Since Ipod was able to figure out how to manipulate this formula, the product was successful.

While reviewing the Apple iPod, it seems like a pretty reliable product. Apple created a variety of music players, allowing consumers a choice of products in terms of price and storage. The iPods range from the iPod Shuffle, only storing up to 512 MB, to the iPod Classic 160 GB. The interactive interface is easy to use, allowing consumers of all ages to enjoy. The video quality on the iPod is better than most, with access to television shows and music videos from iTunes. In terms of drawbacks, most criticism is directed towards the battery life, durability, and popularity in theft. The iPod commercials advertised fourteen hours for playback time, but in reality, the battery lasted on average around eight hours. For the issue of durability, iPods are actually very frail. After being dropped once, the screen will most likely crack, or leave horrid digital crack. The "digital crack" is when there is no physical damage to the product, yet the screen is cracked, causing a complete hassle when trying to find music. In terms of theft, there was a season of iPod stealing. Around 2005 or2006, there was a rash of theft in the New York area. At the height of iPod sales, people were getting mugged left and right. Thieves were spotting out the infamous white headphones and targeting their prey respectively. Although iPods are the highest selling digital audio player, Microsoft Zunes are still better.

First Time Around

This is me, Dion, or as I like to say Seymour Green, as my pen name, since it is a life goal. I feel as a human being, I was created to make money, sort of like the US Mint. As this is my first post, and there is no forced length, I will keep this short. With college, I want to start it off on the right foot. Coming from New York, it is a different feel out here in Michigan. Everyone is friendly, I am not used to all of this. Well, as the culture shock sinks in, I will finally get the chance to adapt and adjust. That's enough for today I guess, time to go to sleep