Don Norman mainly talks about how emotions affects the success of a design and he also points out the idea that a good design is not just about its function and its beauty but also it has to make people feel the story about it.
To convey this idea, one of the products that Don Norman uses as an example is Philippe Starck’s lemon juicer. What’s really interesting is that Starck’s lemon juicer actually can’t be used to make a juice. In fact Don recalled that on his Starck’s gold pleated special edition lemon juicer, there’s a tag saying ‘Don’t use this juicer to make juice as the acid would ruin the gold pleating’. This product is clearly not functional but aesthetically, it’s really beautiful and it has a story that makes it still attractive. Same goes with the Mini Cooper car that Don uses as example, even though this car has lots of faults, people keep buy buying them because they are so much fun to drive.
One idea that Don tried to convey through those examples is that pleasant things work better. It reminds me that as a designer we often put too much focus on function or how a product looks like, we often forget to put some ‘emotions’ to our product, which actually is important as well. It is really challenging to design something that is creative, innovative and at the same time gives users a fun filled experience.
Lastly, from this video I also learned that when we are as consumers considering whether to buy a product or not, we go through 3 level of subconscious processing; visceral, behavioural, and reflective level. On visceral level, we tend to pay more attention to the appearance of a product; whether it has bright or dark colour, if it’s decorative enough for us to collect, et cetera. When on the middle level of processing; behavioural level; it is all about feeling in control which include usability and understanding. It’s like when we are using a neat, sharp knife; we feel the control of the cutting and it gives a satisfying feeling to the user. Finally, the last level of processing is reflective level. At this level we are more concerned about our image, less about the product. There’s ‘a little voice in our head’ watching and saying ‘it’s good, it’s bad’. For example, when we buy something expensive not because that product is better but because it will gives us a luxurious image.
Overall I found this video quite helpful as it gives me a valuable knowledge about human emotions and their correlation with the success of a design.
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