Book Reading #30 - Emotional Design

 Book Author: Donald Norman

Chapter 3: Three Levels of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective
Summary

This is the last chapter Dr. Hammond has asked us to read. In this chapter, Norman discusses the three levels of design. As mentioned in the previous chapter, we can resume them as the following:

visceral design is about the initial impact of a product, about its appearance, touch and feel.

the behavioural level is about use, about experience with a product. As expected if a system is easy to use and effective, the outcome of this experience determines our positive attitude towards it.

reflective level:  where consciousness and the highest levels of feeling, emotions and cognition reside. here is where the interaction between product and user is important and the most vulnerable to variability.

Norman also talks about the the process of design by committee and the process of design by the individual.

Discussion

I understand why Dr. Hammond decided to make the class stop reading the book at chapter 3. Beginnning at chapter 3 we start to see recurring themes. When I read the name of the chapter, I was a bit confused because I thought I had already read, and blogged about this in my previous blog post. Nevertheless, the ideas presented are interesting, and once again he does a good job of illustrating his claims.