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Tag: Emotional Design

  • Successful products vs Magical products – Key takeaway from “Emotional Design”

    “Emotional Design” by Don Norman beautifully highlights the difference between a successful product and a magical product.

    Successful Product – A product born out of prototype creation , repeated testing and re-design.This is the standard process of creating a product that sells and enables the maker to make profits.The recipe is very simple , follow the standard processes of product design.

    Magical Product – Now there is no clear receipt for creating such a product for e.g. iPhone , iPod etc.The only pattern that we see is that such products have been created by visionaries and have involved high financial risks worth the final outcome when the product sell gathers momentum. Had there been a clear recipe , had these followed standard processes and been time boxed  all successful products would have become magical products.

  • Extending brain’s perception of successful product design to movies

    Don Norman in his book Emotional Design draws a great comparison between successful product design to great movies.

    He mentions the three V concept and relates human brain perception to truly successful movies.

    1st V – Visceral – Lizard brain characteristic that gets turned on by appearance , sounds , lights and external show.

    2nd V – Vicarious – This relates to behavioural characteristic wherein subconsciously a viewer keeps himself in the shoes of the actors and gets turned on momentarily.

    3rd V – Voyeuristic – Most important and leads to memories as a result of which we repeatedly watch certain great movies.

    Awesome analogy drawn by the author in making us realise the role of human Brain in making movies memorable ones.A truly great movie thus should have all the three aspects in the right balance.

  • Conceptual design view of designer Vs End User Mental Perception – The proper balance for product success

    The book “Emotional Design” by Don Norman talks about seamless message flow between the designer and end user for a truly successful product design.

    The conceptual design of the designer should resonate with the mental view of the end user of the product for the product to be a grand success.

    The way this message gets communicated has been mentioned as the system image. A truly great product would involve a proper prototype thorough testing and redesign in an iterative manner.

    A truly illuminating concept brought out by the author linking human brain’s perception of a product.

  • Processing of Human Brain – Key takeaways from “Emotional Design” by Don Norman

    The processing of brain , as mentioned by Don Norman in Emotional Design , in humans involves the following major layers:

    1) Visceral layer – This is called “lizard brain” and is related to emotions only.This is at the core of the human brain.

    2)Behavioural Layer – This relates to the habit patterns that can be honed by practice and can be performed sub-consciously.This is ingrained in dogs/horses as well as other animals who can be trained.

    3)Reflective Layer – This is the rational brain that makes humans separate from other animals.

    Human feelings guided by human Brain is an interplay of the above three layers.