My excerpt

1. Select a brief passage from Chapter Three Emotional Design by Donald Norman and post it on your blog. Explain why you thought it was interesting.
2. Norman uses the terms Visceral Design, Behavioral Design, Reflective Design. Do these categories seem useful to you? Would other names or phrases make the categories clearer?
3. How could a designer decide if Visceral Design, Behavioral Design, or Reflective Design is more important for a particular product? Are some types of products more visceral, behavioral, or reflective?

1. “Reflective design covers a lot of territory. It is all about message, about culture, and about the meaning of a product or its use. For one, it is about the meaning of things, the personal remembrances something evokes. For another, very different thing, it is about self-image and the message a product sends to others. Whenever you notice that the color of someone’s socks matches the rest of his or her clothes or whether those clothes are right for the occasion, you are concerned with reflective self-image.” It never occurred to me how many of my purchases were based on this type of design. I never realized how often I bought a shirt because if its brand name or the way I felt when I wore it. This type of design could be very effective as advertisement because everybody walking around is a billboard. If I see somebody with a polo shirt, then I feel self-conscious and want one myself. Therefore not only does a store make a sale but they also get a free form of advertising. This seems interesting to me as I never looked at it in this way.

2. I believe that the three categories that Norman uses are quite useful. They break down the design of a product into three main ideas or objectives. You can then see the products that are successful and just break them down to see what aspects of each element of design each one possesses. You can then find what combinations are best. Also with this idea of three main categories, a design team can focus on satisfying each one to the extent that they so choose. If they want to build a less expensive product that sacrifices visceral and reflective design, but is behaviorally superior to its competitors then they can do that. However, if somebody wants to make a product that almost sells itself just by looking at it, then they will take much more time focusing on the idea of visceral design. Perhaps a simpler way of saying visceral design would be to say natural attraction design, and behavioral design as, possibly, usability design. One could also call reflective design, relation to self design because it is all about how a product relates to you and makes you feel.

3. I would definitely say that some products are more of one type of design than another. For example a lamp that has a straight pole, a light, and a base is strictly for the purpose of providing light. It has no real visceral or reflective design. It is simply a light on a pole. However, you could get a lamp with a nice curvature, a shade, and other things that add to its beauty, but this will cost more for production. The lamp will have a nice visceral design, and it will also fulfill the same behavioral design as the first lamp, but will most likely cost more. The problem designers face is deciding what type of designs are most important for their product. Naturally, certain factors can influence a designer’s decision. Some of these include cost of production, and personal biases. Also, the idea of form or function will help a designer decide what type of design is of greater importance.