Emotional design is present all around. Each person engages with it daily without realizing its presence because if it is done well, it is hence invisible. The invisible design does sound counterintuitive but it has helped create a lot of successful designs.
What invisible design does is that it helps tap into a person’s emotional subconscious, making them feel good even when they cannot point out the reason why they make people feel good. That’s what makes them the best.
A lot of people in fact may not even consciously realize how designs and products make them feel good. They will go back for more each time they consume them or see them due to the best experience they create.
Emotional design is among the best tools a brand has. If companies are not able to appeal to any user’s emotions, they are not appealing to them, and yes it is that simple (and complicated at the same time).
It should be however kept in mind as a company develops its brand on a more engaging and successful footing, along with its signature design assets, the emotional design will be both easy and hard at the same time.
Emotional Design – what is it?
Emotional design is not anything specific like brochure design, minimalism, Memphis design or Brutalism. Instead it is a concept that design can, and should make viewers feel specific kinds of emotions. This is the reason two designs can have a completely different look and feel. Yet they both can still be considered as worthwhile examples of emotional design.
Emotional design is a kind of design that intentionally evokes an emotional response in the viewers. It does not tell the view to feel something. Rather it on its own creates feelings in viewers via deliberate design choices.
Let us first consider about something companies use online, say career portals. If viewers are those who have dealt with them earlier, they probably feel a bit stressed and worried by just thinking about them only.
With large blocks of text, their autofill features that can at times work. However, the information they ask for can be repetiotive and not that important at times. Also, eveyrone wonders how to end all this on a positive note. Each user wonders whether or not did their application go through.
Now lets imagine an online career portal with least clutter, having a progress bar showing users how close they are towards completing their application. A job portal that shows both progress and what to expect next makes it clear what is going to take place within the next two weeks, like an email or a phone call and the like.
The second career portal is the least stressful one because it makes job application a responsive and least redundant process without any stress but rather a lot of relief.
The three levels of design courtesy of Donald Norman
Also known as Don Norman, Mr. Norman is the Director of The Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, and author of numerous books on design (especially The Design of Everyday Things),has conducted a lot of research on the concept known as emotional design. He has identified three kinds of cognitive responses users have to designs of products:
Visceral Response
This is a user’s quick and automatic response to a design.
Behavioral Response
Any user’s subconscious evaluation of a design’s capacity to help them attain their objectives.
Reflective Response
A user’s conscious judgment on the value and usefulness of a design can be described as a reflective response.
Is emotional design something new?
Emotional design is not new. It has been around for a long time. When the first ATM arrived, it satisfied users’ emotional need for instant gratification. Drive-throughs of most fast-food chains do something similar i.e. ordering food whilst users are in the car. Kiosks deployed by most financial services providers and banks have also done the same.
Emotional design desires to make positive associations
Emotional design drives users to conduct specific actions and make specific associations. Color psychology and gamification are among the tactics deployed by designers.
The objective is to create a positive association with the product/service. This could be done by evoking something positive like relief, happiness, joy and the like. It might also evoke something negative like fear or worry then promise something to alleviate the problem thus creating a feeling of relief later on.
Emotional design is also observed in top-notch brochure design. Products alleviating customers’ problems evoke a problematic emotion first, and then later on evoke feelings of relief, trust and joy.
How can a designer create emotion in their design (i.e. emotional design)?
Designers need to understand that the path to their target customers goes through their heart, mind and soul. They should keep the three levels of design by Don Norman in mind when they are creating their brand’s identity.
The designs made should be able to evoke a quick and emotional reactions from users along with the fact that it will give them good benefits. In that way, their mind catches up to their heart, and must determine whether or not the product or service is really worth the price or not. In that way, no one will have any doubt about the emotional assessment.
Key steps leading to creation of emotional design
When designers start creating emotional designs, they should keep the following things in mind:
Understanding the base desires of users
To understand base desuires of users in a much better manner, it is wise to understand the concepts of minds of humans, mice and reptiles. The concept of the repital brain states that the core of the brains retain more primal brain structure in comparison to what the evolutionary ancestors of humans had.
It is sort of the basic brain function which can still be found in reptile. It is responsible for functions related to self-preservation and survival of the species. Regardless of the millenia that have passed by, each life form (including humans) will be carrying primal structures and instincts within the mind. These structures respond to emotional design.
Making a character and engaging it
This doesn’t necessarily mean that each brand or company needs a mascot. Yet they need something that customers can interact with, and this can help improve customer interactions with the brand. When they evngage with the audience as a character, they give them someone/something to care for, and someone/something who cares about them.
Engaging as a character means that the company or brand stay in character at each point with the customer. This means writing content for the ad, emai, website and other medium in a voice which sounds like a specific character. For brands like Fanta, which is youthful and playful; the copy deployed should be fun, engaging and optimistic, especially the words and phrases.
Giving users a sense of ownership
People feel attached to things they feel they have ownership in. Brands should look for ways to make their audience feel valued and be part of the team when they interact with a brand. Here are some ways they can do it:
- Giving the target audience a unique demonum designating them as part of the ‘In Crowd’. Fans of Justin Bieber are known as Beliebers and One Direction fans are known as Directioners.
- Giving the audience branded and highly responsive customer service.
- The audience can find it easy to identify themselves with the brand.
Story telling
It is not limited to just content. Story telling is present in emotional design and in the brand persona, as viewers can easily tell the story behind not just the design but also behind the brand.
The little details count
Everyone has seen a lot of Error 404 pages earlier. They are not memorable. Yet there are brands who went beyond limits to create a worthwhile experience for users to pay attention to minor details. Error messages, colors used in packages, material of packaging, user feedback shown by animations, and other small things are memorable if they are not generic.
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