Design & Emotion Blog

Why do people become attached to their products?

How can a designer increase the degree to which people bond with a product? This is the question researcher Ruth Mugge tackled, who has recently received her PhD degree on this topic at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.
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Design for emotion: ready for the next decade?

My friends and Design and Emotion Society colleagues Paul Hekkert and Pieter Desmet look back at the last ten years and share some of their observations and experiences.

“Over the past ten years we have witnessed a growing interest in research and design work with an eye for these emotional benefits. More and more design research groups around the globe concentrate on emotion research as we have experienced in five consecutive Design & Emotion conferences, companies have started to establish emotion or experience laboratories, and there are few industries nowadays who do not claim to foster the experience of its customers. Design for emotion – or better, design for experience – is hot and rightfully so. Many have acknowledged that triggering a ‘right’ experience can have a tremendous impact on sales and public approval.”

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Meaning of Chopsticks in Asia

Also my friend Young-Ill Kim, vice president of Hyundai/Kia, contributed a very interesting article. He uses the differences between chopsticks and western cutlery to explain his definition of the basis of design:

“Good design cares for people and is for the people. From this aspect, as designers, we should care about people, the quality of their interaction with our products and the relationships amongst the people in order to bring out more human oriented design.

Nowadays, many Western people are talking about Asia; trying to establish businesses and to set up a base or to explore new opportunities. At the same time, Asian Restaurants, such as Chinese, Korean and Japanese sushi restaurants are becoming a popular trend in most western countries, where the western people try to use chopsticks with less developed skills.

In order to explore opportunities properly in Asia, it will help them if they understand the heritage associated with chopsticks and what it means to Asian people in every aspect of life. In essence, the real meaning of chopsticks is nothing but “Human Relationships”.

That is the basis of design.”

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