How Emotional Design Can Enhance Your Everyday Life
How Emotional Design Can Enhance Your Everyday Life
Emotional design is a concept that explores how products and services can elicit positive emotions and experiences in users. It is based on the idea that emotions play a crucial role in human decision-making, motivation, and behavior. Emotional design is not just about making things look beautiful or pleasing, but also about understanding the needs, desires, and feelings of the users and designing accordingly.
One of the pioneers of emotional design is Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist and author of the book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. In his book, Norman argues that the emotional side of design may be more critical to a product's success than its practical elements. He proposes that there are three levels of design that affect our emotional responses: visceral, behavioral, and reflective.
Design Emocional Donald Norman.pdf
The visceral level is the most immediate and instinctive level of emotional reaction. It is based on sensory impressions, such as color, shape, sound, smell, or texture. The visceral level determines whether we like or dislike something at first sight.
The behavioral level is the level of emotional reaction that comes from using a product or service. It is based on performance, usability, functionality, and feedback. The behavioral level determines whether we find something easy or hard to use, satisfying or frustrating, enjoyable or boring.
The reflective level is the highest and most complex level of emotional reaction. It is based on our conscious thoughts, memories, associations, and values. The reflective level determines whether we find something meaningful or meaningless, attractive or repulsive, admirable or shameful.
Norman suggests that good design should address all three levels of emotional design and create a harmonious balance between them. He also provides examples of products and services that illustrate how emotional design can enhance our everyday life, such as:
The Apple iPod, which combines a sleek and elegant visceral design with a simple and intuitive behavioral design and a powerful and expressive reflective design.
The Mini Cooper car, which evokes a playful and fun visceral design with a responsive and agile behavioral design and a nostalgic and iconic reflective design.
The Google search engine, which offers a minimal and unobtrusive visceral design with a fast and accurate behavioral design and a useful and informative reflective design.
Emotional design is not only relevant for products and services, but also for other domains such as websites, interfaces, environments, or experiences. By applying emotional design principles, designers can create more engaging, satisfying, and memorable interactions for users.
Emotional Design Examples and Best Practices
To illustrate how emotional design can enhance your product UI/UX design, let's look at some examples and best practices from different domains and industries.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform that helps businesses create and send newsletters, campaigns, and other communications. Mailchimp uses emotional design to make its users feel welcome, supported, and empowered.
One of the ways Mailchimp does this is by using a friendly and humorous mascot, Freddie the monkey. Freddie appears throughout the user interface, offering tips, encouragement, feedback, and jokes. Freddie also changes his appearance and expression depending on the context and mood of the user. For example, when a user is about to send a campaign, Freddie shows up with a high-five gesture and a confident smile. When a user makes a mistake, Freddie shows up with a sympathetic look and a helpful message.
Mailchimp also uses emotional design to make its users feel successful and rewarded. For example, when a user completes a task or achieves a milestone, Mailchimp displays a celebratory animation and a congratulatory message. Mailchimp also sends personalized emails to users with their stats, insights, and suggestions for improvement.
By using emotional design, Mailchimp creates a positive and memorable user experience that fosters loyalty and retention.
Duolingo
Duolingo is a popular language learning app that helps users learn new languages through gamified lessons and exercises. Duolingo uses emotional design to make its users feel motivated, engaged, and entertained.
One of the ways Duolingo does this is by using a cute and colorful mascot, Duo the owl. Duo appears throughout the user interface, offering guidance, feedback, encouragement, and rewards. Duo also changes his appearance and expression depending on the context and mood of the user. For example, when a user starts a lesson, Duo shows up with a cheerful smile and a thumbs-up gesture. When a user completes a lesson, Duo shows up with a happy dance and a congratulatory message. When a user misses a lesson, Duo shows up with a sad face and a reminder message.
Duolingo also uses emotional design to make its users feel challenged and rewarded. For example, Duolingo uses gamification elements such as levels, badges, streaks, leaderboards, and currency to create a sense of progress and achievement. Duolingo also uses social elements such as clubs, friends, chatbots, and stories to create a sense of community and interaction.
By using emotional design, Duolingo creates an engaging and fun user experience that fosters learning and retention. 0efd9a6b88