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.