Emotional Design

Emotional Design
By: Donald A. Norman

Book Comparison

        The book Emotional Design has a much different view point on the design of devices from the book Design of Everyday Things, also by Donald A. Norman, after reading just the first chapter.  Emotional design in Design of everyday Things is described more to be a trap for designers to make devices that are not friendly to users, but are aesthetically pleasing.  In Emotional Design, studies making a device "pretty" are proven to be easier to use than a similar device that is simply not as visually like able.  Each book has a different emphasis of possible aspects in designing devices.  

        In Design of Everyday Things the emphasis was clearly on usability and intuitive devices.  In my opinion, usability is much more important than aesthetics.  An ugly design that is easy to use will trump a majestic design that is impossible to understand.  Explaining how to create a usable design is also harder to do.  This book does a great job at isolating what makes an intuitive design and what went wrong with designs that are unusable.  It is not easy to know if a design is intuitive by looking at its as it is easy to see if a design is appealing.  Usability is always more important, but a great design has a bad chance of getting noticed if it is not also visually appealing.  

        In Emotional Design, the benefits of visually appealing designs are discussed. As well as the psychological reasons people are drawn to particular designs and the thought processes behind them.  Dr. Norman explains that natural human tendencies effect how people see things.  This does not mean that all people have the same opinions about devices because that is clearly not true.  Our experiences can either emphasize emotions people are born with or dampen them to where they are nonexistent.  The fear of heights is a good example Dr. Norman explains.  Everyone is born with a fear of heights, but through experiences some people may develop acrophobia or on the other hand have no fear of heights at all.  Every emotion is developed like this by everyone.  These emotions are what decide every aspect of how people interact with devices and should be considered in a design.