Emotional Design and Your Next Syllabus:

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Emotional Design and Your Next Syllabus A
Discussion of Emotional Design Why We Love (or
Hate) Everyday Things by Donald
Norman Facilitator Paul Doty, Electronic
Services Librarian St. Lawrence University May
Faculty College May 23rd, 2007
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Assumptions That Lead to Discussion 1) We build,
buy, arrange, and restructure all this is a form
of design. (224) 2) Learning is emotional.
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Phil Agre on Design Design, then, means
selective amplification -- amplification, that
is, we hope, of things we valuedesign is a
process of discovery.
Note on the New Design Space. http//polaris.gse
is.ucla.edu/pagre/design-space.html
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as faculty develop online materials, use
courseware, integrate networked information
technology into their assignments, they are
designing with a capital D. Normans book is
important because we should step back to reflect
on design with a capital D, and to consider how
the technology we design can inspire the emotion
that is packed into the word seriousness.
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when we say seriousness of purpose we dont
mean Mr. Spock OED 1598 MARSTON Sco. Villanie
Prol. B2b, Where I but striue in honest
seriousnes, To scourge some soule-poluting
beastlines.
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• The Road Home
• Norman on Emotion and Design
• Design According to Norman
• Play with a Capital P
• ?

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• Ill Second That Emotion
• Usable but ugly. (8)
• Emotional Design
• Visceral Design Appearance
• Behavioral Design The pleasure and effectiveness
  of use
• Reflective Design Self-image, personal
  satisfaction, memories (39)
• For me a library web site operates on the first
  two levels, a syllabus on all three.

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• Visceral is a Great Word
• Visceral is like venom the sound of the word
  drips with its meaning.
• We often assume the visceral reaction of first
  year students to their new surroundings is
  anxiety (or even fear).
• Clip art appeals to the visceral.
• iPods create a visceral reaction and how!

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iPod in a Teapot you might that it was a
sleek, high-priced thermostat, meant to control
the temperature in a high-priced condominium. A
very sexy detached thermostat that feels very
good when you palm it. (1) Levy These objects
are more than utilitarian. As art, they lighten
up my day. Perhaps more important, each conveys a
personal meaning each has it own story. (4)
Steven Levy The Perfect Thing How iPod Shuffles
Commerce, Culture, and Coolness. New York Simon
and Schuster, 2006.
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Behavioral Design So the very first behavioral
test a product must pass is whether it fills a
needOn the face of it, getting the function
right would seem like the easiest of the criteria
to meet, but in fact, it is tricky. Peoples
needs are not as obvious as might be thought.
(70)
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Shaker Design The Shakers did not spurn beauty
they simply reinvented it. It is wrong to suppose
that Shaker design was bound by endless
restrictions. The Shakers had just one do not
make what is not useful. (21)
June Sprigg. Introduction. Shaker Design. New
York Whitney Museum of American Art, 1986.
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Death by Bells Whistles Creeping featurism is
the tendency to add to the number of features
that a device can do, often extending the number
beyond all reason. (172) think Microsoftthink
the Microsoft Paper Clip...
Donald Norman The Psychology of EverydayThings.
New York BasicBooks, 1988.
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• Reflective Design
• These questions are all cultural. There is
  nothing practical, nothing biological, about the
  answers. The answers are conventions, learned in
  whatever society you inhabit. For some of you the
  answers will be obvious for others, the
  questions will not even make sense. That is the
  essence of reflective design it is all it in the
  mind of the beholder. (87)
• ReflectiveMemorable
• CulturalSLU Community and where our students
  have been
• BeholderStudent

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Reflective Design II If you want a successful
product, test and revise. If you want a great
product, one that can change the world, let it be
driven by someone with a clear vision. The latter
presents more financial risk, but it is the only
path to greatness. (98) We programmers can lie
back and inherit the vendors assumptions. We can
accept the structure of the universe implicit in
the tool. We let knowledge about difficulty and
complexity come to reside not in us but in the
program we use to write programs. Ellen Ullman
Programming Under the Wizards Spell.
Harpers August 1998 15-20.
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• Seven Principals of Design
• Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in
  the head.
• Simply the structure of tasks.
• Make things visible bridge the gulfs of
  Execution and Evaluation
• Get the mapping right (feedback).
• Exploit the power of constraints.
• Design for Error.
• When all else fails, standardize. (188-189)
• Psychology of Everyday Things. New York Basic
  Books, 1988.

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Designing For Error Standardizing
Jakob Nielsen Alertbox http//www.useit.com/aler
tbox/
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Play and Design
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Design and Play II
Thus what is considered delightful depends a lot
upon context. The actions of a kitten or human
baby may be judged fun and cute, but the very
same actions performed by a cat or human adult
can be judged irritating or disgusting. Moreover
what is fun at first can outwear its welcome.
(106)
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Design and Play III
very fasttips easily
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Further Reading Caplan, Ralph. By Design Why
There are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in
the Hotel Louis XIV and other Object Lessons.
New York St. Martins, 1982. Dreyfuss, Henry.
Designing for People. New York Simon and
Schuster, 1955. Krug, Steve. Dont Make Me Think
A Common Sense Usability. Indianapolis New
Riders, 2000. Laurel, Brenda. Computers as
Theatre. Reading Addison-Wesley, 1993.
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge
MIT Press, 1960. ---. What Time is This Place.
Cambridge MIT Press, 1972. Petroski, Henry.
Small Things Considered Why There is No
Perfect Design. New York Vintage, 2004. ---.
Success Through Failure The Paradox of Design.
Princeton Princeton UP, 2006.