Designing for Emotion Chapter 1

Part of our assignment this week was to read the first chapter of Designing for Emotion, the textbook (e-book) we’re using for our PR Publications class.

I definitely agree that communication in general, especially communication on the web, has become less business-y and more conversational or emotional. As the textbook states, with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter “The curtain has been drawn back, exposing our humor, grumpiness, concern, stress, and all the other emotions that season our days … this honesty is creep- ing into the personalities we craft for our businesses, and our users are beginning to expect the websites and web applications they visit to reflect a personality that they can relate to.”

 

That being said, I don’t necessarily agree that using positive emotions in design can convert unhappy customers or lead people to “forgive shortcomings, follow your lead, and sing your praises” as the text states. I’m sure using positive emotions in design can have impact, but I’m not convinced these positive emotions are as powerful as the author seems to think they are.