donald norman on EMOTIONAL DESIGN

Contrary to the earlier beliefs of function over form, a new age of design; emotional design, slips into our culture as the new and radical selling point to contemporary consumers.
Although function AND form are still both inherently vital to a products' popularity, the notion that an emotional interaction between the consumer and a product be present is coming of greater consideration.

Donald Norman gives a few examples, starting off with the famous lemon juicer by Philippe Starck. Instead of keeping the juicer in the kitchen, where it is meant to be, he places it at the front door as a showpiece. The initial function of the juicer is completely placed into disregard, yet the beauty of the juicer provokes emotion and is fun and pleasant.

He also mentions a study between two groups of students, in which they had to connect two pieces of string together to reach one another.
The first group was purely told that the problem was an IQ test, determining how well they did in life. Subsequently, they were unable to solve the problem.
The second group were given a box of candy before the problem, and thereafter was able to solve the problem.
Norman explained that when forced under anxiety, neural transmitters are released into the brain which makes you more focused and "depth first", whereas if you are happy the brain allows to think "breath first" and also "outside the box".

Norman also mentions the emotional processes which are labelled into three categories including visceral, behavioural and reflective.
Visceral includes our senses, attraction to different smells, textures, sights, noises.
An example of this includes a consumer purchasing a water bottle for the visually attractiveness and decorations over the function.
Behavioural includes usability and function of a product.
An example is the Rondavel tilting teapot and it's three stages of lying down, tilting and standing up. This evokes an emotional response from the consumer.
Reflective is where the little voice in your head resides.
An example is purchasing an expensive, yet environmentally safe car, which shows others that you care about the world.

In an effort to engage with products to create an emotional interaction we must learn to adopt these emotional processes, diffusing the psychology of the human mind.