Designing for Emotion Ch. 3
Moving along in our book… this week we read chapter three- “Personality”! Here are a few of my thoughts on the chapters content and main points.
1. What is one thing in Chapter 3 that you agree with?
The author talks about how we are attracted to the personalities of people, things, and designs. To show this the author gave the example of the Volts wagon beetle, whose front end resembles a smiling human face. He says people were and still are attracted to the car for this feature, and I agree. The car itself isn’t super practical, its small and the placement of the engine is backwards. But there had to be something else then that made people want to buy this odd car, and that was that the car resembled a person and had a personality. I agree that the face of the car conveys a hopeful, fun attitude and that it makes it easy for generations to connect with and build a relationship with. This is just one of the many examples that demonstrate how important persona and personality are to consider when creating a design that attracts and resonates with people.
2. What is one thing in Chapter 3 you disagree with?
I strongly disagree and dislike the example of the Carbonmade.com website that the author talks about. This site is one you signup for, and it provides you with tools to build a portfolio online. The author commends the site for using a character, a unicorn, and crazy, colorful, entertaining elements on the front page of the site; he says these things are important to distinguish it from competitors and to draw people in. But then once people have signed up the site drastically draws back from these crazy elements so that people can get their work done. This to me seems too inconsistent; I get the practicality of it but maybe those people signed up because they wanted their working site to be crazy like the front site, only to come to find out it is boring and different. Also I disagree that a site design like this would draw me in, but then again maybe I’m not the target audience? Still I am actually turned off by the childish elements of the homepage attempting to entice me to signup to build my portfolio. I think a unicorn mascot and childish color are in-congruent to go with a portfolio building website for adults.
Comments