Don Norman's TED talk reflection

Don Norman’s TED talk focus on beauty and emotions for the designed products. He points out that pleasure influence our choice and way to think. This is really helpful for us to improve.

In his talk, he said that “The new me is beauty. My new life is trying to understand what beauty is about, and pretty, and emotions. The new me is all about making things kind of neat and fun.” When in that part, I try to answer what beauty and pretty is about, but I could not find any actual descriptions for that. As what Norman says in the talk, beauty is related to emotions.

Norman points out three levels for our emotions about design work,

1.     Visceral – This is much about the appearance of the design. Such as the font, the color, this is really basic way to show emotions, but it always work. Visceral is related to beauty directly, as what Norman says that you bought a water bottle not because of the water inside, this is all about the visceral experience.

2.     Behavioral – This is the middle level of processing, it is talking about the pleasure and effectiveness of use. Behavioral is subconscious, we are unaware of it because when we realize we have reacted. “Automatic behavior – skilled behavior is subconscious, controlled by the behavioral side. And behavioral design is all about feeling in control, which includes usability, understanding, but also the feel and heft. Feeling that we are in complete control of the environment. “ Actually I will try to understand this as humanness. We all know human desire and the way we feel comfortable, therefore, we try to change and design the new product. “Emotion is all about acting, emotion is really about acting. It’s being safe in the world.”

3.     Reflective – The self-image, memories, and personal satisfaction related to the design. At this level, Norman helps us to overlook the products’ functions, and try to focus on their image, and also the price. For example, most people buy the luxury watch but not a functional classic watch.

After watching this video, I realize that a good design not only base on how convenient, effective its functions are and how it looks like, great look, cute look or bad look, but also it is much importance about its emotions. Each design product can be a story and the designer is the storyteller.