Designing for Emotion Chapter 7

As we are in the last week of PR Publications, my professor allowed us to choose any chapter of the course textbook, “Designing for Emotion” and reflect on it. I decided on Chapter 7, “Risk & Reward.”

One thing I found interesting in this chapter is the idea of “Risk & Reward.” The author discussed a case study about CoffeeCup Software’s Easter giveaway.  CoffeeCup announced via Twitter that they had hidden over  $20,000 on their website and all users had to do was find it. This increased their website views immensely. Therefore, they risked a significant amount of money and saw a reward. I agree with this strategy. I think any great business move involves risk to see rewards.

Though I rarely find anything to disagree with in this textbook, I am not sure I believe whole heartedly in the author’s statement, “The more effectively you can employ emotional design in your site, the better conversion rates and sales will be.” While I think this is applicable to several websites, I do not think it applies to all. Some users enjoy simple accessibility to information without the “fluff.”