Designing for Emotion Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Designing for Emotion is about emotional engagement, how adding emotion to your design work engages your audience. The author wrote about the difference between open and closed systems. An open system allows the user to be creative because they have to fill in the missing content. A closed system has already filled in the missing content and restricts creative thinking. This is why many people say the book was better than the movie. I agree with what the author wrote. Open system engages the audience more because they allow you to use your creativity. Adding anticipation to a design work makes it an open system because the viewer has to use their imagination and creativity to fill in the blanks.

I couldn’t find anything in this chapter that I disagree with so I am going to write about something else I agree with. The author wrote about Twitter and when they changed the look of its site. Twitter gave its users the option to stick with the old look or switch to the new one. The author wrote that by Twitter giving its users this option it gave them power. Users responded positively to the switch because an option was given. They weren’t forced to switch, which is what creates apprehension towards design changes. I agree that the idea of giving users an option is a good way to empower the user and have them become more engaged.