Emotional Design...Round 2

“There are two kinds of product development: enhancement and innovation. Enhancement means to take some existing product or service and make it better. Innovation provides a completely new way of doing something, or a completely new thing to do, something that was not possible before.

Innovations are particularly difficult to assess. Before they were introduced, who would have though we needed typewriters, personal computers, copying machines, or cell phones? Answer: Nobody. Today it is hard to imagine life without these items, but before they existed almost no one but an inventor could imagine what purpose they would serve, and quite often the inventors were wrong. Thomas Edison thought that the phonograph would eliminate the need for letters written on paper: business people would dictate their thoughts through the recordings.” (page 71)

1) I found this passage from Norman’s book to be particularly interesting because it talks about innovation, the actual invention part of the design. Norman captures the complexity and difficulty of dreaming up, researching and creating a truly original product. People would have never considered that they could benefit from a personal computer. Prior invention of the personal computer, no one (excluding the inventors) could fathom the idea. It took the imagination and creativity of a few inventors to introduce this “life changing” product to the public.

2) The categories that Norman presents in this chapter are very useful. The categories hit all three levels of design, the subconscious level, the physical level and the external level. When a product is effective on all three of these levels, it is not only marketable and desired, but it also functional and useful, thus making it a good product. These categories could not have been issued better names. Visceral, by definition, means to deal with instinctive and elemental emotions. The category that retains this name describes designs that attract the eye and begs consumers to buy them on impulse. The category that includes the physical feel of design, and the way the product behaves is entitled behavior design. Finally, the category that reflects your image and status is called reflective design. The name of each level includes the features the level tries to cover.

3) A well-designed product includes all three levels of design mentioned in this chapter. However, for certain products, one of the levels must stand out more, or out weigh the others. For example, a car must use all three levels, but if the car fails the behavior level then it is useless. So behavioral design is most important to a car because even if the car is not flashy and does not catch your eye, it can still be operated and can still get from point A to point B. This being said, a car that is flashy and has good visceral and reflective design, is more likely to sell than a car that is worn down and rusted, which proves that all three levels of design should be focused on. Some products focus more specifically on one level of design. For instance within the category of clothes, dresses focus on the visceral and reflective designs more than they focus on the behavioral aspect, meaning they’re more for looks than for comfort. On the flip side, sweatpants are designed mainly for behavioral purposes, to keep you warm and comfortable as opposed to looking extravagant or high class.