Cognitive theories of product emotion and their applications in emotional product design

Abstract

Product attributes which can elicit positive or negative emotions among users, determine product acceptance in market. Different cognitive theories of emotion are found in literature for emotional product design. These theories explain the various aspects of underlying phenomena of emotion generation based on product attributes and their impact on product choice. In present paper, six popular cognitive theories of emotion (viz. ‘Kansei Engineering’, ‘Theories of product personality’, ‘Pleasure model’, ‘Product Appraisal Model’, ‘Emotional Design Model’, and, ‘Technology as Experience Framework’) have been reviewed, stating their potential benefits and limitations. An integrated theoretical framework of emotional product design has been proposed by incorporating different potential approaches of earlier mentioned cognitive theories of emotion. It is expected that developed framework would be helpful to industrial designers, ergonomist, product innovation managers and cognitive scientists towards better emotional product design.