Emotional Design Principles

(Norman, 2005)

design influences on three different levels which need to be balanced. pure rational UX design from (D. Norman, 2013) is not enough to fully understand the human element of design. these levels are:

• visceral: subconscious gut feeling about sensory input: color, shape, texture, sound, proportion → generally the aesthetic level is dominant here
• behavioral: mechanics of use, control, feedback, efficiency, learnability → strongest connection to classical UX design approaches
• reflective: conscious interpretation and meaning

these levels interact, so one can have a positive or negative impact on others and allow for more affordances. a product that is very meaningful people will endure maybe more inefficiencies that for something that is meaningless.

several implications follow:

• aesthetic quality is not just mere decoration, it primes the subconsious to be receptive for other levels
• usability alone does not determine attachment: narratives, meaning, identity signaling and memory formation have bigger impact.
• different products emphasise different layers: enterprise software might focus on behavioral, while fashion app focuses on reflective meaning.

→ usability is part of a larger emotional framework rather than a pure functional engineering problem.

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