Let me introduce you to a mini-series of articles on the importance of emotions in design.
Today, the approach to user interface and interaction design is still often steered away from using emotion as a tool for interaction between the user and the product and as one of the cornerstones of the user experience design.
The first software designers were those who possessed the knowledge how to write instructions in programming languages – developers, engineers and techy nerds. Naturally, they cared much more about the viscera of their products than about the emotions their creations can imply.
Though the early developers didn’t care about emotions too much (as many of them still don’t care today), every one of us experienced lots of different feelings when using their products. We all feel frustration and anger when dealing with rude and incompetent software as well as satisfaction when something goes smoothly and the product does exactly what we want.
So how is the software (often) designed and developed today?
Unfortunately, the design and development of a software product is often viewed as creation of a tool on a factory line.
Often, the engineers and technical directors responsible for the development are concerned mainly about technologies used, or in the better cases about inclusiveness, accessibility and standards.
Marketing people care mainly about introducing brand-new set of features (that will catch up with the competitor’s newest product), brand management and appropriate visual design, while executives are interested in time management and cost side of the project.
Even if the team has designers who deploy principles of goal driven design, who go through rounds of careful research, prototyping and testing, they seldom care about how people using their products are affected emotionally.
Emotions are part of our nature that is, from the software development point of view, are often considered quite problematic. Emotions can force us to behave in an inappropriate way and disturb our logic (live long and prosper, Mr. Spock). How many times have you heard that emotions do not belong to mature decision making? Every one knows arguments that not the emotions the product brings us, but technical specs and a list of features are what really matters.
This approach that dismisses the emotions as something inappropriate for serious decisions and important work is actually making the way we use products more difficult and inefficient.
Products designed with emotions in mind work better
After all, nice does not mean unusable and it is quite clear that everyone prefers using lovely things. According to the research happy people are more creative, deliver better outcomes and will easily overcome problems.
On the other hand, there are situations where anxiousness is the proper emotion we need to design. For example, products designed to be used under pressure should not distract us but help us to focus on a task. Basically, we need to consider different emotions for different products – and different purposes.
The easy-to-use product with all appropriate functions, fitting the target market’s needs can naturally be successful. However, the product will shine if it satisfies users’ emotional needs.
My name is Jiri Jerabek and I'm UX consultant and MSc student of Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics at UCL.