David Kelley - Human-Centred Design

David Kelley’s talk on human centred design was really insightful and clearly outlined the importance of human centred design. David talks about how designers these days are now focusing on human centred design. Human centred design involves designing behaviours and personality into products, which according to David Kelley, makes the job more enjoyable. 

In the talk, David Kelley presents us with a few different examples that he had worked on that are great examples for human centred design, which include the Prada store, the installation, the cubicle, Spyfish and Approtec.  These examples show different ways an individual can interact with a product or environment, so that the individual can feel engaged with the product or environment. 

The Prada store is a great example of human centred design. Their goal was to conceive technology for the retail store that gives the store a cultural role as well as a retail one, which meant actually designing custom technology as opposed to just buying things off the shelf and putting them to use. One example of the technology used in the Prada store that was designed around an individual is the dressing rooms. These dressing rooms have features such as a touch screen where the user can use to get different types of information about the clothing that they chose. The different technological features of the Prada store make the experience for the shopper better, because they shopper is at control of many things, so that they are engaged in the whole experience.

In the past, companies where designing their products without designing around the human taken into consideration, which led to a lack of emotion and value the user had with the product. The new trend of human centred design makes for an engaging and immersive experience the user has with the product and a sense of value is gained from this experience. This talk has opened my eyes and made me understand the importance of human centred design.

Don Norman - Emotional Design

Don Norman's talk on emotional design was very interesting and engaging. This talk has made me realise the importance of the aesthetics of a design and how it can trigger different emotions. He talks about the beauty of design and how that can affect a person’s emotion by making them happy, and also how aesthetics can attract a consumer rather than the function, but both should be taken into consideration.

There are three levels of emotion mentioned in the talk, which all can determine the way we perceive a design. These levels are visceral, behavioural and reflective. The first level is visceral. The visceral level of processing is subconscious because we are unaware of it. We have co-adapted through biology to like and dislike certain things. These likes and dislikes are already built into our brain and is the first thing we consider when looking at a design to determine whether we like it or not. A great example that Don Norman uses is the water bottle. We don’t buy it because of the water but we buy it because of the bottle, which we most likely would keep to reuse or for decoration.

The next level of processing is behavioural, which is where we get most of our work done. Just like visceral, the behavioural level is also subconscious. The behavioural level of processing is all about feeling in control, which includes usability, understanding, but also the feel. As a consumer, we need to feel in control of the product and when we are in control of a product we can convey our emotions and what we feel.

An example of behavioural processing that Don Norman uses is Global Knives. Global Knives are so nicely balanced, very sharp and also aesthetically pleasing. When you use the knife you really feel in control of the cutting. Another great example is the tea pot. The user of the tea pot is in complete control of it and every stage the user puts it through show an emotion the user is trying to convey.

The third level of processing is reflective, which is that little part of the brain that looks over what we’re doing but has no control over what we do. It’s the voice that says if something is bad or good. An example of this could be an expensive watch. We might buy an expensive watch to impress people. However the watch could be bad at keeping time and probably won’t last long. 

Don Norman’s talk really made me realise the importance of the beauty of design. Aesthetics just doesn’t make the product look gook but it can also trigger many emotions and can tell the people around us how we feel. I also learnt that when designing something we shouldn’t just consider the aesthetics over function or the function over aesthetics, but we should balance the two, so it can cater to the people that buy it for the beauty or the people that buy it for the functionality.