Emotional Design Review

1) In this chapter Norman focuses on three main topics of design: visceral design, behavioral design, and reflective design. He begins with visceral design, stating that this is the “pretty” part of a design. A good visceral design may lack intellect and detail, but visually, it is a pleasing product. Behavioral design is an engineer’s kind of design, it is simple and does what it is supposed to. This type of design is not concerned with aesthetics, rather functionality. When a product functions the way it is meant to work, works efficiently, and is easy to use, it is a behavioral success. Lastly, reflective design is all about emotion, how a product makes its users and people its users interact with feel. This idea is best displayed through the perception of name brands. A product may be equal, or even lesser, to another product, but because of its name it brings in greater revenue. If a product makes its users feel good about themselves and earn the respect of others, it has succeeded in a reflective perspective.
2) When reading this chapter I felt it was merely an expansion of the previous chapter from The Design of Everyday Things. Many of the basic ideas were the same (i.e. functionality, feedback, mapping), but ideas such as visceral, behavioral, and reflective design serve to further elaborate on the previous topics and to discuss the emotions conveyed by them. Behavioral design is the basis behind functionality. A good product is one that does what it is supposed to as easily as possible while providing adequate feedback. Visceral design can be tied to mapping in the way that a good looking product is often an easy to understand one. Finally, a product’s good reflective perception is often a result of strong, previous designs that were able to efficiently use all the aspects discussed by Norman in The Design of Everyday Things.
3) Visceral Success- Children’s puzzles: they are simple, colorful, and pleasant to look at, but all in all are not very complex and probably cheaply made.
Behavioral Success- Bagel cutter: not aesthetically pleasing, but serves it purpose to make a routine task much easier.
Reflective Success- Clothing company’s (Lacoste, J. Crew, Armani, Oakley)- These companies often make products that aren’t much different in quality from the likes of GAP and Old Navy, but by putting their logo on the clothing the company gives its consumers a sense of pride and higher social standing.