For decades industrial designers have know how to make products desirable and emotional (eg: Kansei Engineering and the sensorial quality assessment method). By infusing basic physiological truths into the design (power, sex, status), you can transform an ordinary utilitarian object into something people crave.
Cars are a great example (like this 2009 Camero… mmmm sexy!). They should be fierce and sensual. Sharp angles and contrast in the front to give the intake and grill a “mouth” or “jaw” like appearance, like a ferocious animal ready to devour its prey. The hood and sides have sleek, streamlined curves. They’re like a 60s pinup girl painted in silver. That’s how you make a car sexy, baby, yea!!!
(430 gas guzzling HP and an exterior that’ll make you drool…American car design at it’s best (or worst?))
But what about interactive design? How do you make a web site sexy… or happy, or glad, sad, or even mad for that matter? How to you make interactive design emotional? Is it purely through the visual treatment? No. Last week I laid claim that the future of design can be found in games. So with that in mind, you can make interactive design emotional through…
Narrative and feedback.
- Product design is emotion frozen in time.
- Interactive design is emotion expressed as a series of events and feedback.
Narrative = using audio, video, characters, and stories, to bring users into world, just as video games like Halo do.
Events and Feedback = letting the users take action, and see the consequence of their actions.
At least, that’s what my take is for today. What about you?
PS. I wonder how many people will read this post solely because of the title =)
PPS. Here are some resources for desirability and emotional design:
this car is sexy as hell literally. I’ve only seen the outside and it’s smoking hot
This car is so so sexy it makes me get all tinglely it is 2 awesome i already hav the last 1 that was made hope ill be able 2 gt this 1 also keep up the bomb work and bring it out asap!!!!!!!!!!!!!
when are the 2009 camaro.s gonna be at the dealerships,that will most definately be my next purchase!!! please send me some literature on the silver 2009 hardtop camaro i absolutely love this car ya,ll did a fabulous job i truly believe it will be a #1 seller when it hits the market we like it better than the corvettes,there are talk about a camaro club as well,like the corvette club…why is camero spelled this way CAMERO, on the old camaro,s was spelled like this CAMARO?
I must say that the new 2009 Comero is one of the best cars I have ever seen. Its body def, looks better than the older ones. Before I would have told you that one would be crazy if they though that I would drive one of the older ones for the main fact of simply “it was ugly” and this car is one that you want to imagine yourself in, one you can really put the meaning of ride like the wind and in style to what it says. Great Job! to whom ever created this beautiful car
Great looking automobile! I might have to trade in my “smart car”..lol