If the assignment was to contrast the first chapter of “Emotional
Design” and “The Design of Everyday Things” in general, then I would have a
whole lot to say, such as DOET actually backs up its ideas with good examples
and DOET actually talks about how its ideas actually affect design, but since
the assignment is to focus on the two’s perspectives, I will try to limit my comparisons
to the two views of the books.
Design of Everyday Things is very practical. It focuses on
how the design of everyday things can help/hurt us when we are trying to figure
out how to use them. The design should promote understanding through constraints,
feedback, affordance, etc. Emotional Design focuses much more on the aesthetics
of the design. He discusses how the aesthetics can affect how we feel and therefore
how we think when using the object.
While the two books are very different, I do not see how
they necessarily opposites of each other. I feel like these two different ideas
can coexist peacefully in a world where all created objects can be functional,
easily used, and affect our emotions the proper way. Nowhere in the first book
did he say that the way the object looked had to be sacrificed in order for his
principles to be used. He did give some examples where the design was difficult
to use because they sacrificed usability for aesthetics, but he also mentions
in the other book that it can be bad to go the exact opposite route too. He mentions in Chapter 6 of DOET that
selective attention is bad in any form. In my opinion, this is just an
additional factor for designers. They must strive to handle everything Norman
talked about in the first book, and in addition, consider how the design
affects the emotional state of the user.
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