Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65849 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-20
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
By the author of the best-selling The Design of Everyday Things, the first book to make the crucial connection between our emotions and how we relate to ordinary objects - from juicers to Jaguars Have you ever wondered why cheap wine tastes better in fancy glasses? Why top-of-the-range sporting equipment seems to improve your performance? Why sales of Macintosh computers soared when Apple introduced the colourful iMac (even though the computer itself was identical to the old one)? New research on affect and cognition has shown that attractive things really do work better, a fact designers and fans of Don Norman's classic The Design of Everyday Things can't afford to ignore. In the last decade, the design community has focused its efforts on making products easier to use. But as Norman demonstrates in this fascinating and important new book, we don't just use a product, we become emotionally involved with it. Emotional Design demonstrates and analyzes for the first time the profound influence of this deceptively simple idea.

Every time we encounter an object, our reaction is determined not only by how well it works, but by how good it looks to us, and by the self-image, loyalty and even nostalgia it evokes in us. When a product is aesthetically pleasing, behaves the way we expect it to, and plays to our ideas about ourselves and society, we experience it positively. That's why some people are willing to spend thousands on a Rolex even though a cheaper digital watch keeps just as good time. Don Norman addresses these and other provocative questions - drawing on a wealth of examples and the very latest scientific insights - in this bold exploration of the objects in our everyday world. His best-selling Design of Everyday Things showed why the products we use should not be confusing, irritating, and frustrating. Emotional Design explains why they must also be attractive, pleasurable and fun.

Customer Reviews

Two sides of the coin
As lately I became interested in design (computer interfaces, human-computer interaction), I enjoyed this book. The first part of the book put my thoughts into a new perspective, and clarified some of the issues I had after finishing the User Interface Design course (M873) at Open University. But then, the second part of the book didn't impress me that much. To be served better by robots we should give them feelings like anxiety and pride!?? That maybe worked for the science-fiction writers decades ago, in my childhood, but even in those books there were a lot of problems with this approach. But I guess it is a nice way to dream about the future; by the way, this future won't allow us to make the robots be like Mr. Norman predicted (at least until we put all the current computer science into the garbage bin).
However, the book is a well worth reading, even if you are not interested in design, so I'm going to rate it with 4 stars (maybe 3.5 would have been better).

Cognitive science explains our love of good design
Understanding the emotions consumers feel about the objects you sell can help your business make the most of its product designs. Expert Donald Norman explains how being attractive, fun and enjoyable makes a product better. He explains that the emotions which affect purchase decisions are based on three aspects of design: "visceral" (appearance), "behavioral" (performance) and "reflective" (memories and experiences). He provides interesting case studies to show how objects evoke emotions. Norman's central theme is that "attractive things work better." And, the book works best when he hews to that theme; the last section, where he veers into a discussion of robots, doesn't seem as pertinent or as strong. We recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how design affects emotions, and how emotions affect purchasing decisions.

Out of touch with modern technology
I really enjoyed The Psychology of Everyday Things, but I found this book disappointing. Donald Norman makes some comments that make him sound like an out-of-touch IT teacher at school rather than a master of clever design.

The suggestion that we might one day all have clever boxes in rooms of our houses, say that showed us how to do auto repairs in the garage, or cook a recipe in the kitchen, seem to have bypassed entirely the concepts of the Internet, Wi-Fi, and LCD flatscreens. Why re-invent the wheel? Similarly, how could a book on the way thought and emotion interact in the design of products possibly neglect to include the Apple IPod? This thing has totally revolutionised consumer electronics but instead we're treated to a chapter about the design of kettles.

There's the kernels of some good ideas in here, but they're not followed through with particularly impressive thinking. I'd be very interested to see someone else tackle this area from a more modern perspective.