Three levels of emotional design

The capacity of brain and information processing ability varies among different creations.

Norman (2004, 21) defines these processing capacities in three different levels. Visceral level- which is more subconscious and automatic level, behavioural level- a level that pro-cesses everyday behaviour and finally reflective level- which acts mostly as the analysis tool which analyses previous experiences or surrounding components and provides reflec-tion to act upon. As menreflec-tioned, visceral level is instantaneous, it makes instant decisions about the acceptance of anything and provides immediate response to our brain and body

parts to act upon. While behavioural level is based on behaviour or practice. The brain re-ceives behavioural signal and sends them to the part which has a set of instructions about what to do during that situation. And reflective level is the highest level of processing. It is also slower in nature that the former one’s. It does not control any sensory input or behav-ioural activity directly but provides judgement and analysis to the behavbehav-ioural level to pon-der upon and act accordingly. To fulfil the requirements of these three levels of brain pro-cessing three design concepts are used.

Visceral design addresses the need for visceral part of our brain. The nature around us is very symmetrical and has attractive elements to attract each other. A male bird or animal attracts his counterpart female animal or vice versa. Or a bee that is attracted to flower which has sweet fragrance. An animal is also attracted to a sweet fruit or tasty food. This behaviour isn’t uncommon to humans either. We like to see beautiful symmetrical things, taste sweet or delicious food, listen to beautiful voice or sound, touch smooth surfaces etc. In design psychology, visceral design deals with how to make a design attractive or likeable to the user. By using appropriate color, shape, size, and appearance a design can be made attractive to the users. Look, feel and sound dominates the visceral level of de-sign, as it is all about initial reaction. (Norman 2003, 68-69.)

Behavioural design deals with the effectiveness of the design to the experience of the user. Norman (2003, 70-83) describes behavioural design through four components. Each of these components can impact the behavioural part of the brain and effect the emotion of the user. Namely- Functionality, understandability, usability, and physical feel. Function-ality is a key element in design. Having a design with excellent visceral design but lacking in functionality could make it unwanted and will lose the value it was intended for. Func-tionality helps to solve users’ problem in the context whether the user is aware or not. For example, a restaurant menu even if it was designed with the most aesthetic-ness as pos-sible but doesn’t allow the user to order the food will not be of any value or use. Norman shares two way of functional development- enhancement and innovation. Both ways are reflective to users’ behaviour and solves either an existing problem or a problem which was unaware of. Understandability is the second component of behavioural design. To make a design effective it is must that users are provided with enough information to be able to understand the design. The faster a user can interpret a new design corresponds to the level of effectiveness of that design in terms of understandability. Norman advice designers to design the models such a way that there is high percentage of similarity among the models during different stages of development. By developing prototypes and

testing them understanding of a design from the user’s perspective can be understood. Af-ter that comes usability. It is possible that a product does its required tasks and under-standable but might not be usable. An example of usability can be an instrument which is requires years of practice to gain control over, despite its functionality and understandabil-ity it might not be usable to many. Universal usabilunderstandabil-ity is very important topic in system de-sign and is taken care of by the dede-signers to make sure system is usable by all group of users. Different authorities also require designs to have specific usability aspects such as voice command for blind users. Norman describes Physical feel as the fourth component of behavioural design. By changing the position of an element in the design can have a different feel to the user. An example of such component can be the fingerprint sensors on the smartphones. Designers have tried to design it in many ways but eventually found the upper backside of the phone to be the best position in terms of physical feel for this op-tion, and this is being used by almost every android designer till date. These four compo-nents when considered well during the design process, would fulfil the behavioural need of a user, and enhance the experience and engagement. Norman (2003, 70-83.)

Reflective design level deals with reflection about a product or service from user experi-ences, memories, preferexperi-ences, and values. This design level provides message, culture and meaning to the user when interacting with a design. Norman (2003, 84-85) gives an example about two watch to illustrate this phenomenon. He details two watches one hav-ing fancy interface provides reflective delight ushav-ing unconventional method of displayhav-ing the time. And the other one a practical, sensible watch without any reflective design but absolutely fulfils the requirements. Among these two watches the former despite lacking behavioural aspects in contrast to the latter is more appealing due to its reflection to the user as a mean of showing off their prestige or holding something which is not common.

While the other one despite having the utmost behavioural aspects lacks in reflective as-pects. Though this argument from Norman can be counter argued, as someone who con-siders that second watch to be more useful and likes the brand might reflect upon those attributes during the purchase of the product and thus pondering upon the reflective de-sign of the product. Brand images, celebrity connections, reliability, word of mouth all could be related with reflective design as these aspects do influence over the buying deci-sion when user reflects from these aspects. Norman (2003, 88) also argues that customer relationship plays a vital role in reflective decision making, so user experience design goes hand to hand with reflective design.