Feel Planet Earth, Cifial Design Award, is organized with the aim of promoting design, both as a culture, and as a tool, capable of proposing innovative solutions to man’s approach to his social and natural environment.

The object of this contest is to promote the exchange of ideas and spread the values of design, offering new approaches to tasks products and services, visualizing, interpreting technologies, etc.

Its theme arises from the day-to-day concerns around the huge transformations that are presently taking place in our society economy culture and environment, and which the present paradigms seem to be unable to deal with.

The goal of this award is to identify and disseminate design contributions to help build a path towards sustainability on issues that we all face, and must urgently discuss.

It will be run on a two-phase selection based firstly on an Abstract submission and then a further development for those selected.

The theme for the 2008 Award will be the over-dependence on non- renewable sources of energy in the current pattern of development.

Any design work on this issue, whether a vehicle, a public transport service, a cooking device or a lighting system, a water pump or any other practical or theoretical contribution, as well as a synopsis from an MsC or PhD dissertation, can be proposed.

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2008 edition

To change the present social, political strategical and climacteric circumstances implications of consumption, new good and services with a minor impact, will have to be implemented and proposed in order to gurantee scenarios of broader social equity and energetic sustainability.

Design can and should give an important contribution in what respects this issue, with the proposal of new usage forms, new approaching and solutions to artifacts and services capable of strengthening the new energetic and social paradigm.

“Feel the planet earth” will have a jury constituted by a number of elements representing the divers sensibilities, scientific formations and nationalities, capable of generating a dynamic and multifaceted evaluation of the proposals.

This diversity will ensure a uncompromising evaluation of the dominant paradigms and at the same time will allow new intercultural readings of the candidatures which are expected to open new paths and propose new solutions.

The Prize, that at the 2008 edition will have the value of 25.000 €, can exceptionally be handed over “ex-equo”, to two or even more candidates, with an equitable division of its value, and in addition commendations may be attributed, these however with no monetary retribution.

The handing over of the Prize, will occur in a public session with the intervention of the members of the jury, which may express their personal opinion on the issue in discussion, results obtained and its importance and contribution to the issue presented to discussion. At the same time will be held an exhibition of all finalist works presented to phase 2.

Dutch invitation to participate

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Bijna precies een jaar geleden, presenteerden wij de eerste versie van de LEMtool en schreven wij een paper voor DPPI 2007 over de eerste experimenten.

Onderzoek staat echter niet stil. Op dit moment wordt gewerkt aan een nieuwe versie van de LEMtool, een instrument voor het meten van emoties in interactieve omgevingen.

Naast ‘usability’ is ‘emotional experience’ een belangrijke succesfactor voor websites en andere interactieve producten.

Doe mee aan het validatie onderzoek (max 10 minuten) op: http://lemtool.susagroup.com/validation

>> Download the full magazine here <<

The launch will be held in Santiago de Chile, on August 6. If you can make it, please attend this interesting event. The official spanish announcement:

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Eventos de lanzamiento N° 2: “Diseño de Emociones y Experiencias”.

Ya está próximo a lanzarse el nuevo número de la Revista Faz, dedicado al diseño de experiencias y emociones. Y para hacerlo en grande hemos organizado los siguientes eventos:

En Santiago de Chile Miércoles 06 de agosto

Lugar: Auditorio Telefónica (Edificio Telefónica, metro Baquedano).

Hora: 19:00

Programa:

• 19:00 - 19:15 Presentación de la Revista Faz, Marcelo Garrido Palma, DIrector.
• 19:15 - 19:45 Evaluación emocional de interfaces digitales bancarias. Sandro Araya, gerente internet BCI.
• 19:45 - 20:15 Visión crítica del diseño emocional. Maricarmen Marcos, Editora científica.
• 20:15 - 20:45 Interrogantes y expectativas en el diseño de experiencias para Imagen País de Chile. Jennyfer Salvo, Jefa comunicaciones de Imagen País Chile.
• 20:45 - 20:50 Cierre

Order one of your own!

Inspired by breakthroughs in brain science and facial coding, which correlates facial expressions to specific emotions, Dan challenges traditional ideas of understanding and measuring people’s decision-making process for consumer insight testing. Recognizing that the body doesn’t lie, Sensory Logic utilizes both verbal and non-verbal methods and has developed a systematic approach that accurately reflects the new scientific model that intuitive, and often subconscious, experiences drive consumers toward decisions that eventually determine a company’s market share and profits.

Dan received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University following studies at Brown University, Oxford University, and St. Olaf College. His book Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say, was a Fast Company Book of the Month nominee and was rated by DDI Magazine as one of the three most important business books of 2004. His new book, Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds, was released in September 2007 and has received notable praise. Dan Hill is a frequent speaker at business conventions from coast to coast, as well as in Europe and Asia.

The interview below is a result of an email conversation I had with Dan. Also many thanks to Gijs Huisman of SusaGroup for his valuable input.

Hi Dan, thanks for taking the time for this interview. In your book Emotionomics you propose a method of emotion measurement that uses facial expressions. Could you describe how this works?

Facial coding offers a chance to tap into consumers’ intuitive, often subconscious emotional responses. It originated with Charles Darwin, and is based on three facts: 1) the face is the only place in the body where the muscles attack right to the skin, hence great spontaneity; 2) humans have more facial muscles than any other species on the planet, hence the wealth of data; 3) even a person born blind has the same facial expressions, hence the method’s universality across cultures (despite display rules that do vary some but it’s the same muscle movements that correspond to the same emotions, only the intensity and duration of the display will vary across cultures.) At Sensory Logic, we use the system of Dr. Paul Ekman – the Facial Action Coding System – to review digital video files down to 1/30th of a second to decode which muscles are moving, and which emotions consumers are therefore feeling.

What kind of business relevant conclusions should be drawn from the measurement of specific emotions?

Positive vs. negative responses is only a start. Knowing that somebody felt angry (often because they’re confused about how to use a product, for instance), or scared (because they don’t get what the product is about), or skeptical about its value, or really happy (a true smile) vs. a contrived, social smile is great data that enables clients to understand the real nature of people’s reactions and thus ways to improve the design, or advertisement or whatever is under consideration.

Your true confidence in the science and benefits of facial coding reveals that you probably do not believe in any self-report methods in measuring emotional experience. Is that the case? And, if so, what is your criticism on this type of methodology?

Self-reports face numerous problems, which can be summarized as the fact that there are things people can’t or won’t say. The can’t say is because there’s much that happens for us intuitively, subconsciously. The estimates are that between 1-5% of our thought process is fully conscious, tops. The won’t say is due to social pressures to confirm, to play nice, etcetera, or because people don’t really make the effort to be articulate or discriminate more precisely how they feel. In general, having people think their feelings rather than feel their feelings is bad science and bad research. So, no, I don’t especially trust people’s answers; have you ever been lied to you in life?

On which levels should emotions be incorporated into businesses? What should be the priorities? For instance with corporate climate, advertising strategies, etc.

The great, crippling myth that much of business operates under is that utilty is enough. Well, a product’s features can usually be imitated over time, or may not even be understood very readily by consumers. The key is the benefits, especially the emotional benefits, and how they are designed into the consumer’s experience and advertised in a way that will emotionally connect. There are so many ways in which emotions should be made part of business planning, with achieving a better connection with employees during the stressful period of a merger of acquisition being merely one additional example.

Designers usually have a very specific structure in the way they go about a new design. How can they use the findings of facial coding studies in their design process and in which stages are they most effective?

A designer needs to be inspired, and find that inspiration within. At the same time, however, for the design to be commercially viable it has to connect and work, on a sensory-emotive as well as rational , utilitarian basis, for others. The insights gained from facial coding can be instrumental in helping a designer avoid having a blind spot in regard to something that may not be connecting in the way intended.

How should we strike a balance between the rational and the emotional in our design decisions?

The rational aspect is often table stakes, getting in the game. The product must do what it is supposed to do. But in a very crowded marketplace, getting people to fall in love with the design is a huge commercial advantage. The extent to which it is striking, pleasing, et cetera, helps a lot. The rational, functional aspects of the design should leave breathing room for the emotional connection to still happen, by which I mean a very complicated design requires too much cognitive load. Nevertheless, trying to present too many sensory-emotive wows can be troubling, too. When I was a poet attending workshops, we used to say: when you sacrifice your favorite line from the poem to make it organically work, then you knew you were making progress.

And how should we achieve a shift from functional to emotional design?

The shift from a rational to emotional focus is too simplistic; it’s more a matter of accommodating each aspect, but especially the emotional aspect that gets its heart cut out often in the later, production stages due to cost-cutting. Facial coding can help protect against that happening thanks to scientific data that can prove to numbers-oriented senior management that to save a euro here or there may cause the whole thing to collapse in terms of its appeal, costing a lot more money in lost earnings in the end.

When SensoryLogic studies the emotional response to a certain product of a client, you study the facial expressions of the subjects (which reveal the ‘true’ emotions) and compare them to what people say (which reveals what people want us to believe how they feel). I can see a dilemma here for designers.
Let’s say we are looking at an iPhone. I am explaining how cool I think it is, and that everybody I know has one: I love it! At the same time, my ‘true’ emotions reveal that I feel a bit uncomfortable and even frustrated. This could mean I don’t like it that much at all, nevertheless, that probably wouldn’t stop me from buying one! How do we deal with this difference as designers? I mean, in the end, turnover also counts, right?

There is a social aspect to which products succeed in the marketplace, of course. One’s own emotions can be influenced by knowing what’s trendy. A cover for that is to ask a hypothetical question that establishes the product is “hot” and see the degree to which people change, emotionally, after you get their own true, individual “read” or response first.

This way of measuring emotions seems to demand an expert’s eye, which can be difficult for some smaller size design companies to get access to. Is this methodology of measuring emotions in relation to product design dependent on experts only? How easy is it to educate people that work in design companies in facial coding?

Sensory Logic is at work with a partner on automating facial coding. That will enable companies to supply video to us to be coded more quickly, less expensively, and with a greater volume of coding possible in general. Topline coding is probably possible for most sensitive, vusually-oriented, detail-oriented people to accomplish. But we code down to 1/30th of a second, so it takes very careful people to do it well. Plus, there’s the training aspect. At present, and until the automation is complete, there’s no business incentive, frankly, in training rivals. Once the automation comes on line, we intend to provide topline training in facial coding to the market.

In an interview with the magazine “Auto Experts” you compared the front ends of cars with faces: they both give out an emotional message. What according to you is the relation between the perception of the front of a car and the perception of a human face. Isn’t a car just an object?

“Love the grill!” someone commented on the Internet on this photo

We’re influenced by everything around us, buildings, the landscape, and cars, too. I’m not personally into driving a car with an angry or disgusted face, but the spirit of the age means a lot of people want to show a hostile, tough-guy image to others to get people to back off, because it’s considered cool, et cetera. Being edgy and coping an attitude projects confidence, after all. So a car is not just a car, of course, but a reflection of our self-image and a second face for us, in the same way that our house, our pet, et cetera may also signal our personality, socio-economic status, and outlook on life.

Thanks Dan, for sharing your insights with us!

The article, from Philips Design News:

Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Madrid, Spain – NH Hoteles and Philips have announced that they will conduct an intensive two-year study into the optimization of well-being amongst hotel guests. To support the research, NH Hoteles and Philips have teamed up as a first step to create a unique room at NH Hoteles’ flagship Barbizon Palace hotel in Amsterdam featuring the latest in ambient solutions. Researchers will collect consumer insights into how different room settings and technologies affect the guests’ hotel going experience and well-being as well as their interaction and relationship with entertainment systems and lighting.

Currently being specially designed and equipped, the “NH Ambient Experience” room will become functional during the summer and combine the latest innovations in dynamic LED lighting design, audio-visual entertainment and health and well-being products. Guests will be able to fully personalize their surroundings in line with their mood for example by using intuitive controls and pre-set lighting environments - static, restful effects…or dynamic ones - to help them promote an overall sense of well-being and relaxation as well as bringing an element of the personal spa into their own hotel room environment. The use of colored light, for example, can enhance guests’ moods and enrich experiences – just as the latest developments in televisions, like Philips Ambilight, clearly show.

The room will enable all types of guests, from business to leisure travelers, to experience the new state-of-the art technology in the NH Ambient Experience room. “With more and more people traveling and spending time in hotel rooms, the experience that we create for our guests in terms of personalization and well-being is a key priority. Therefore, we are constantly looking at how we can create exciting and surprising experiences for our guests,” according to Gabriele Burgio, President of NH Hoteles. The same booking procedure will be used for the NH Ambient Experience room as with other standard NH Hoteles rooms.

The partnership builds upon other experience research between the two companies on how to optimize the hotel experience. In other ongoing initiatives, Philips is working together with NH in various European countries on the use of energy efficient lighting designs in an effort to improve interior ambiences while simultaneously improving energy efficiency, illustrating that energy efficient lighting does not mean having to sacrifice a luxurious image or particular type of ambience. Furthermore, Philips and NH Hoteles are also investigating new intelligent solutions geared towards helping guests find their way in hotels.

“We are always looking at new ways through which our innovations can improve people’s lives and contribute to a more complete sense of health and well-being. We are therefore very excited about partnering with NH Hoteles in this study where we are essentially putting the consumer at the center of what we do to enable us to continue bringing relevant and meaningful solutions into the market, ” Harry Hendriks, CEO Philips Netherlands, has said.

The results from the current study will help Philips to continue to become more customer-centric and provide innovative and timely solutions that improve people’s lives based on indepth consumer insights. NH Hoteles, on the other hand, will in the future apply Philips’ solutions in its hotels to set the standards in the hotel industry and continue to improve the hotel experience of their guests.

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When I was studying industrial design at the Kunstakademie in Stuttgart our professor, Richard Sapper, urged us to take the time to discuss and develop an idea about the future world we would like to live in. In his opinion this was very important for us as designers, because only if we had formed a strong personal vision and were motivated by an idealistic drive, would we be able to shape products that would have lasting meaning.

As much as this resonated with me back then, it still does today. My interest in the thinking processes associated with design has continued to manifest itself throughout my professional journey as well as in terms of my current role in design research & strategy at Teague.

Within design and other creative professions, I think there is a substantial difference between a reactive approach and a critical approach. With a reactive approach we run the risk of coming up with ideas that merely emulate “the mood of the time” without ever asking the bigger question if we even needed this product or feature in the first place. Through a critical approach we can try to challenge current paradigms, to bring in differentiated awareness and understanding, as well as aesthetic and cultural sensibility, thought leadership and a future perspective. Ultimately the energy and care we invest into this process is expressed in the emotional quality and innovation of our products.

It’s not always easy to incorporate such an approach within our projects since we are all driven by the concrete needs of our clients, ever tighter deadlines and fast product cycles. In my experience, however, taking time for critical exploration will pay off later; the depth of the thinking process works itself into the feel of the product and its associations. We are creating greater “emotional product inertia”, we make our products more sustainable by ensuring that they will stay relevant over time.

I think some of this work has to happen outside of the actual project realm. At the highest level the goal is to extend our thinking, by relating our design problems to the bigger context of our time, it’s philosophy, it’s socio-cultural fabric, it’s challenges and show how they relate to the past as well as to possible futures. I think we benefit highly from establishing a cross disciplinary discourse to other creative disciplines who are struggling with some of the same questions, interpreting them in their way and shaping the future in their fields, such as architecture, art, fashion, music and writing to name a few. Through a stronger vision of the whole we are enabled to give our projects more relevance and impact.

We industrial designers have to work within the practical, emotional and philosophical tensions of our time. It seems that the 21st century is providing ample opportunity and challenge for us to shape the future in meaningful ways.

The question that Richard Sapper asked us 1 ½ decades ago of course has not lost its relevance: “What is our vision for the future and how can we try to bring a little bit of that vision to life in the next product we design?”