Donald Norman: Emotional Design

In Norman book Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, he represent  that the emotional side of design may be more critical to a product success that its practical elements. His fundamental thesis is that attractive products work better. He contends that beautifully designed products  make people feel good, which in turn makes people open up and be more creative and mature enough to find solution to their  problems. Things to include the role emotion play in consumer purchases. According to Norman people making  decision  is dependent on two emotions or the mind of the conscious and subconscious.

Donald A. Norman focuses this time on the aesthetics of objects and the impact it has on their usability. If you want people to use objects you design for them, you better make them look nice. Humans are emotional animals, our emotions and senses guide our lives. In Emotional Design, Donald A. Norman introduces the reader to the psychological underpinnings for this fundamental need, and finds that there are two other fundamental needs, too. These needs stem from the reflective, behavioral and visceral levels of cognition and affect. The visceral level is immediate and direct, reacting to the look, color or sound of a product and feeding in to the behavioral level. The behavioral level is concerned with how products function, and feeds in to and is affected by the reflective level. The reflective level is where we make value judgments, think about things, and where memory impacts our experiences.

First chapter, the author mostly explains about the emotions that play an important role in our daily life. He also wrote about, why he said the first functional model in the design of everyday things disabilities, how the environment affect the positive and negative thinking and can help maintain alertness in focusing, and level of thinking. Emotional also help us to make a good decision. However, negative emotional impact on some people in the focus on the things that cause problems, and if this fails to provide the solution, they were getting more tension, more concerned, and increase their concentration to those details. This case is different with positive emotions that are important along with the negative emotions. Positive emotions sometime important such as in learning make a choice, and when to make the right decision towards an object.

Next, in the first part of chapter two, the author discusses about how the three levels of cognitive and emotional systems work together to help and provide to user or customer about usability and the usage of the whole product experience. Embarassment is an emotion that reflect one's sense of the appropriateness of behavior.Exploitative commercial objects are describes as kitsch,as are works that claim artistic value but are weak,cheap,or sentimental.Emotions reflects our personal experiences,associations,and memories.The design challenge is to keep the virtues while removing the barriers:make it easier to store,send,and share. 

 Then, in the third chapter, Norman goes into detail about the three levels of design. Those are, if you recall, visceral, behavioral, and reflective. That roughly correlates to initial reaction, functionality, and emotion. However the human response to the matter of  complex everyday world which is determined by various factors. Every level is as important as the other , but each requires a different approach by the designers.  

In conclusion, people and product are interdependent. If a product is useful and of interest. People will always try to get and have it. For example, the mobile phone is more and more sophisticated and is in touch with the times. All actions are controlled by three aspects: the visceral, behavioral and reflective.