Emotional Design Questions

1. I feel that the author's key points in this chapter were the three levels of design which include visceral, behavioral, and reflective design. Visceral design is more nature based. Physical features such as look, feel, and sound are mostly dominant in the visceral design. It is our initial reaction to products. Behavioral design more about what the product does and how well it does it, appearance does not matter. Reflective design is about a lot of things that include the message, culture, and the meaning of a product or its use. All people are guilty of worrying about our image and how we present ourselves to others. Another key point in this chapter was the talk about how designers rarely watch their customers use their products. Designers test their products with people in their company and not everyday people, so the company keeps adding features because their people can use the product and know what is going on but every day people might not know what is going on.

2. This chapter is pretty similar to the earlier writing. Norman points out many of the same things that he did in the previous writing. This just shows that some of Normans ideas are still being used today. One major difference is in this chapter Norman seems to talk more about the feelings that a buyer may feel towards products.

3. Something that succeeds as Visceral Design are movie posters, DVD covers that promote movies. A movie poster or a DVD cover could look very flashy and catch your sight that you actually might consider going to that movie or buying that DVD even though the movie might be bad. I think these are successful because they are eye catching and make you want to go out and get that DVD or see that movie just because of the look. A product that succeeds as behavioral design is my iPod. It is a basic white video iPod and i bought it for storing and playing music. I did not buy it because of how flashy it looked or anything because it is white and plain. It is successful because the iPod does what you want it to do and it doesn't have to look flashy when doing it. A reflective design success is clothing that is named brand. This is an example because everybody sees the symbol and I know I feel good where named brand clothing. It gives a sense of being able to wear expensive clothing making you feel more confident in what you do. Named brand clothing is successful because people often make a big deal about what kind of clothes you wear and it makes the person more confident when they wear those clothes.