Design & Emotion Blog

Enriching is a beautifully designed book, based on a workshop that was initiated by the Design & Emotion Society. It consisted of two sessions in Hong Kong and The Netherlands. The book is not merely a summary, but its design, the examples and the extensive theory make it a book to keep on the coffee table for inspiration. Personally, I think the format of the workshop by itself can be implemented as a renewed design process in almost every organisation. Therefore, do not hesitate and buy this one for under the Christmas tree. Enjoy!

Check it out at www.designandemotion.org.

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About the book:

In the summer of 2008 twenty designers worked on the case: “How to enrich the airport experience by designing interventions with an intended emotional effect?” under the supervision of three design experience experts. The workshop was an initiative of the Design & Emotion Society, a platform stimulating emotion and experience driven design.

The aim of the workshop was to create a number of design cases in which the emotions of the passengers would serve as the starting point for enriching the airport experience. During the workshop, interventions were designed guided by a theoretical model concerning the emotion process. The theory, the process, the sub-results and all final concepts are comprised in the book entitled: Enriching. Not specifically the end results, but clarifying the application of the emotion theory and the structured design process were the main goals of this book. In addition to attention for the process and results, the book provides a tangible representation of the vibrant activity of the cross disciplinary and cross cultural workshop.

Enriching the airport experience
The airport was chosen as a subject because of the dynamics and richness of this environment, in which, due to the large number of stimuli present, emotions play an intriguing role. Three days of workshop in Hong Kong followed. First, samples of airport experiences were collected during a visit to the airport of Hong Kong. After analysing the samples the most interesting pieces of experience were selected, which on their turn were thoroughly investigated by means of the theory. This provided profound insights in the role of emotions in these experiences and in how to influence these emotions with interventions. Each of the five groups developed multiple concepts based on a desired airport experience. In Delft, where the second part of the workshop took place, each group developed its most promising intervention into a worked out concept.

Design & Emotion Society and the Open Minds program
The workshop was organized by the Design & Emotion Society, an international platform which has facilitated numerous workshops in many countries since its foundation in 1999. Since the workshops have always been evaluated with much enthusiasm and experienced as very inspiring by participants from the three core branches of the society (design practice, corporate and research), a way to make the process and results of the workshop accessible to a larger public was sought for. The Open Minds program of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, bringing together Dutch and Chinese designers, enabled the society to organise the workshop and publish the results in a book.

About the Design & Emotion Society
The Design & Emotion Society is an international network of researchers, designers and industry, which aims at stimulating emotion and experience driven design. The goal of the network is to share knowledge and methods in the area of product design. Next to workshops an international conference is organised biannually. The society was founded in 1999 and the board is situated in the Netherlands