Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things

Donald A Norman

Basic Books, 2005 - Psychology - 257 pages

Did you ever wonder why cheap wine tastes better in fancy glasses? Why sales of Macintosh computers soared when Apple introduced the colorful iMac? New research on emotion and cognition has shown that attractive things really do work better, as Donald Norman amply demonstrates in this fascinating book, which has garnered acclaim everywhere from Scientific American to The New Yorker.Emotional Design articulates the profound influence of the feelings that objects evoke, from our willingness to spend thousands of dollars on Gucci bags and Rolex watches, to the impact of emotion on the everyday objects of tomorrow.Norman draws on a wealth of examples and the latest scientific insights to present a bold exploration of the objects in our everyday world. Emotional Design will appeal not only to designers and manufacturers but also to managers, psychologists, and general readers who love to think about their stuff.

What people are saying

Review: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

User Review  - Xuejin Chuang - Goodreads

Norman gave a pretty good introduction to designing products that elicit emotions we want our users to have. But i found he was presenting too much examples in too great detail that i found myself ...

Review: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

User Review  - Liza Temir - Goodreads

The start is very meaningful; brings together his own ideas about emotions in design and other's people's frameworks/models. Good comprehensive examples. But somewhere in the middle, it really starts ...

Contents

• Three Teapots: 3
• The Meaning of Things: 15
• Attractive Things Work Better: 17
• The Multiple Faces of Emotion and Design: 35
• Design in Practice: 61
• Three Levels of Design Visceral Behavioral and Reflective: 63
• Fun and Games: 99
• People Places and Things: 135
• Emotional Machines: 161
• The Future of Robots: 195
• We Are All Designers: 213
• Personal Reflections and Acknowledgments: 229
• Notes: 235
• References: 243
• Index: 249

About the author

Donald A. Norman is Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, a former “Apple Fellow,” and a partner in the Nielsen Norman Group Consulting Firm, which consults with corporations on design. He is the author of a number of books on design, including Emotional Design and the best-selling The Design of Everyday Things. He lives in Northbrook, Illinois and Palo Alto, California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things
• Author: Donald A Norman
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Basic Books, 2005
• ISBN: 0465051367, 9780465051366
• Length: 257 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Cognitive Psychology; Psychology / Emotions; Psychology / Physiological Psychology