Designing for Emotion: personality

For this post I was asked to talk about Chapter 3 of Designing for Emotion, which talks about personality in design, and how online design should focus on user experience that imitates human to human interaction, not computer to human.

It was fascinating to see how designed has use these same basic concepts for centuries, from the printing press to the Volkswagen to Mailchimp, it’s all about making a connection with the user that will make them see themselves in the design. It’s about making the user feel comfortable and receptive, about a personality that promises to be consistent and trustworthy.

The most interesting concept I learned was that of personas, referring to web design, and learning the idea behind Mailchimp’s design since I actually have used this service before. It’s fun to see whether what they attempted to do worked for me as what we could call their consumer.

On the other hand, I did not agree wholeheartedly with Carbonmade’s concept which, as the book suggests, is like a reverse mullet, party up front and business in the back. Carbonmade is basically a website for online portfolios. The whole idea behind their quirky first impression is to make people comfortable and not take them too seriously in order to sign up for their services. I understand the premise, I know I would be more hesitant to sign up for s service that seems like it will be too much of a commitment and will probably be more complicated than I want it to be. Nevertheless, I don’t know that this completely opposite approach would effectively work for me.  I would also think it would really depend on the industry the person is in who is trying to build a portfolio. Even if the website is more professional on the inside, first impression does not make it seem like something I would use for myself. But I suppose, like it is suggested, maybe I am not the right kind of customer for them, if I don’t agree with this it’s obviously not targeted toward me, my personality.