Predefining emotions for visual product appearance

Abstract

In recent years, the processes of how consumers experience emotions in products have become prominent topics in design research. However, to embody emotions in products still remains an elusive issue for designers. A reason for this is that, although designers might argue they have strived to predefine a certain emotion in a product, studies indicate that the emotions consumers experience when interacting with products, often are unclear. Does this mean that the idea of ‘designing’ emotions is artificial? Or, is it possible to improve the chance that consumers actually experience what designers say they have predefined? This paper addressed this issue and presents a research through design project that investigated the question if designers can predefine specific emotions into visual product appearance that people will actually experience later. Two stimuli were designed with a focus to gain theoretical insights as well as empirical research findings. The reported study shows that to some degree designers could elicit the actual emotions that were predefined for the visual product appearance.