Chapter 3 – Designing for Emotion

To top off this week, I was assigned to read chapter three of Designing for Emotion. So far, this book has been really insightful in the advise that writer Walter gives when it comes to using emotion to design. In chapter three, I read about personality. Personality is an essential tool to create human-to-human like communication with your designs. I really liked the “persona” model for creating personality in creative design. I think I could be a very helpful model for me to use in future projects. An example of a “persona” is the persona of the Volkswagen Bug. The vehicle is designed round (like a head) with two big round headlights (like eyes) and a bumper which ends turn up to get the impression of a smile. The Bug is the “peoples’ car” because it emulates people. When people look at a bug, they may want to smile because the Bug appears to be smiling at them. I like the idea of personality in objects, products, designs because it makes it much more humanistic to interact with a personality than a cold, plain object. I really enjoyed this chapter, as I have enjoyed the whole book this far. The only critic that I have of this chapter is that is mentions the backlashes in using personality in design but does not go in depth into that discussion. I hope later in the text, more of that issue will be revealed.