Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
ISBN:9780465051366 read summary

This book is a great way to take new perspectives towards design. I read it about five years ago and I still pick it up when I'm in the creative doldrums. I thought every chapter was interesting and useful until the end when Don starts talking about robots.

The subtitle of this book is misleading: "Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things". The last 1/3 of the book deals with how emotions will play a role in robotics. Even in 2009, robots are still behind the scenes. Perhaps Norman's assertion that when robots take on emotional aspects, they will become commonplace but until then, we could all stand better designed 'Everyday things'.

One thing that Norman does predict in this 2005 book is that the video game industry would do well to take a better look at behavioral and reflective design - rather than purely visceral design.

The wild success of the Wii over the Playstation 3 shows Norman to be somewhat of a prophet in this regard. Wii design from a play standpoint focuses nearly entirely on an antithesis of the visceral/visual sense - with players not having limbs and so forth. Controls are also simple rather than complicated. The focus is on personalization and relational aspects; crossing multi-generational lines.

In all, the book would be well served with many more examples of actual everyday things that connect on visceral, behavioral and reflective levels rather than theorize about the future of servant robots.

I've been a fan of Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things", (also known as "The Psychology of Everyday Things") for many years, but only recently finally read "Emotional Design"

Norman greatly expands his ideas about design here, breaking it down into visceral, behavioral, and reflective design. Behavioral design includes everything discussed in Everyday Things, visceral design is design that appeals to our most basic instincts, instincts that prefer things like primary colors, sweet tastes, round smooth objects, and smiling faces. Finally, reflective design is design that appeals to us because it's "cool", or because it has a message, or it's clever, or it supports a cause we believe in, or it has prestige.

Norman expertly weaves together his analysis of these three levels of design, including plenty of examples to clarify his points. Of course, the truly great designs often appeal to us in two or all three of these ways. His examples range from teapots to cars to showers to roller coasters to water bottles. In the chapter entitled, "People, Places & Things", Norman offers the best analysis of "always being connected" that I have read, clearly explicating both the positives and the negatives of being in that state.

Finally, the last two chapters discuss machines and robots, whether they should have emotions, and if so, what kind and in what degree.

Overall an excellent book that will really make you think about design in some new ways, regardless of what kind of design you do.

I really like this topic, but i found the book a little hard to read because some parts can be boring.

It's a good book

I really enjoyed the first part of the book. It is a good read as the Design of everyday things was (which is a must), with great examples and stories.

The concepts in this book are quite simple and the book becomes a bit repetitive after a while. Having said that, I would recommend the book if you are a designer or if you closely work with designers.

(The last quarter of the book is about emotional machines and robots and less about design. These I simply skipped.)