It wasn’t my first encounter with this type of devices, as in Korea this is actually a very common restaurant feature. Why Koreans use the call bell? This was nicely explained on a site I found:

Why do Korean Restaurants us a call bell?

As for the culture of Korean restaurant eating, there is no appetizer, entree, dessert type of menu. You order your meal, and you are given your food + banchan which is the Korean word for side dishes. The banchan is included with your meal. Perhaps you can think of it as small appetizers that come out at the same time as your meal. After you are done eating your food, you are usually given your check with some fruit pieces or even a cup of shik-hae which is a sweet rice drink. That would essentially be your dessert.

So most Koreans just eat and leave. We don’t chit chat and linger over dessert wine and creme brulee like Westerners, at least not the older generation. The bell system is put in place so as soon as the meal is over, the customer can press the button to get their check and leave. It’s also a great tool to help restaurants provide quick service to customers without invading their privacy. Haven’t you been in the situation where your waiter comes to check on you and you have a big mouthful of food in your mouth? Wrong timing, right? It’s just an easier way to run business to call your waiter when needed.

Wouldn’t a call bell in all restaurants be a welcome relief for all parties?

So, despite Spanish eating culture being completely the opposite from the Korean (Spanish take up to 2 hours for lunch ), the call bell also seems to work well within that context. So, I wonder, would such a simple concept work in most cultures? And, if so, why don’t we see them much more often? Similar concepts have proven to be successful within all types of settings (air planes for example, see image) and there are obviously many on the market. So, why isn’t it a common feature, and what is blocking it from becoming a real success in the restaurant business? It would seem to help them work more efficient and creat less irritation among both waiters and clients, wouldn’t it?

The organisation was in the hands of a truly marvelous team of students of the Tech de Monterrey university. I have never felt more pampered then in this conference. I don’t think I have spent a full hour in my hotel room, due to their continuous care to feed us and offer us drinks and great company GRACIAS A TODOS! I feel that I have made some wonderful new friends.

In the course of the 4 days I was in Querétaro, I gave a keynote presentation (see below) to a wonderful audience of around 350, a Get Emocional! workshop (26 participants) and taught a class to design students (thanks to @dianalbarran).

My talk

My talk focused on sketching the properties of a world in change and what role designers have in this, plus, a possible answer to how they can influence world change by design. I state that emotional design can be a key factor (Factor Clave) in creating mindful, meaningful products and services that assist world change and improve people’s lives. Below is a slightly shortened version of the actual presentation.

In this 48hr assignment, Arduino had to be used in a concept around ‘time’. Participants Gijs Huisman, Michael-Owen Liston and Giorgio Uboldi came up with the idea to design a very simple physical interface that would tell time in a rather unusual way. The lay-out and the material used would have to attract the user to interact with the design.Their design concept was called ‘Knock Clock’, which pretty much explains it right away

Knock Clock

The inside of Knock Clock is built up with an Arduino Uno, a piezo element (which detects the knocking), a light sensor (which puts Knock Clock in alarm modus) and a servo-motor with a hand-made ‘hammer’ to knock the inside of the Knock Clock. The exterior was hand-made out of rest wood, found by the designers.

See the video below to illustrate how it works:

Knock Clock from Giorgio Uboldi /// TRUO on Vimeo.

I think it shows a wonderful authentic way of interacting with a clock that feels natural, but also completely different of what we’re used to. I can see this work for blind people and I am sure there are similar products around that probably ‘talk’. The nice thing about knock-clock is that it gives that church-bell feeling of that you have to wait until the last bell to know what time it really is. This asks for a little patience, but enriches the experience as time (waiting) becomes part of the experience of knowing what time it is.

This phenemenon and other challenges are discussed in an awesome post by my friends over at ExperienceRethink: Design and Emotion Behind Automated Objects and No-Touch Environments,

They talk about how automated, non-touch objects can improve our experiences in public spaces that are being used by many people and offer a challenge in hygiene.

Public spaces and automated, no-touch objects are a relatively new experience beyond the occasional sliding door. Yet, they are transforming the dynamic of public spaces.  Moving away from the traditional “hands-on” approach where the feel of  the object and its material enhances your experience to a “no-touch” gesture or motion based approach that has many implications both for the design of objects and environments as well as for creating the best emotional equities for different spaces.

The desire to move in and out of a space without making physical contact depends a bit on the type of space, but for public spaces two underlying needs are driving these changes:

1. An efficiency play, to reduce the need for cleaning, and,
2. Reduce the perception of dirty, especially the idea of spreading germs and bacteria.

The design for emotion challenge?

I think Brian and Cat are making a really interesting point here. What else can we think of where ‘design for emotion’ comes in, in solutions for hygene experience in public spaces? Does it mean we make everything non-touch, or the opposite and do we design things to make us more hygenic/ hygiene conscious? This is the solution that is given in the Indian example, where they rather try to educate you then to provide the solution for the ‘problem’. I think this is an interesting discussion, even though personally, I get extremely happy with the non-touch soap dispensers, taps, hand dryers (Dyson!!). What I haven’t seen in public yet is the solution for opening the door as can be seen in the picture on the right. Handy! Let’s ask for this in airplanes where doors open so difficult that you are made to touch it for a long time! Let me know what you think is the best application of design for emotion in this area, and share examples!

Emotions play a vital role throughout the span of our lives. Strictly speaking, the concept of emotion refers to a particular and specific affective phenomenon: a brief episode of coordinate brain, autonomic, and behavioural changes that facilitate a response to an external or internal event of significance.

In different stages of our lives we will experience particularly designed products and services that will resonate emotionally with us. These products and services will become part of our identity, we refer to them in stories about our lives or coming of age: they define who we were then, and who we have become now. My own personal identity timeline with emotional brands would most definitely include: Disney, LEGO, Spalding, Air Jordan, Honda, Apple and Volvo. These brands have managed to stick with me, but how can other brands achieve the same? – Through emotion-driven innovation.

Three trends that support emotion-driven innovation

The influence of the ‘emotional quality’ of consumer products on purchase decisions is growing. Companies are forced to make the difference on the basis of providing a full and meaningful experience for the consumer. Nowadays it is more difficult to distinguish products based on their technological advances or quality. In many markets, products are similar in respect to their technical characteristics, quality and price. Consumers however are looking for products, brands and services that give them a feeling of wellbeing, happiness or create a memorable or meaningful experience.

Brands like Apple, LEGO or Coca-Cola have a long history in their ability to communicate and resonate with consumers on a meaningful level. The clients of these companies are not just followers of the brand – they are true fans, along with all of the benefits of having clients that feel unconditional love for them.

It is therefore no surprise that more and more companies are challenging their designers and R&D department to (positively) manipulate the emotional impact of their designs. For them, it becomes vital to have a profound understanding of how products elicit emotions and how tools that evaluate the emotional impact of a certain design can be used.

Along with technological advances and the fast-paced consumption society, you can also see the shift from moving away from ownership of objects/ products towards a central focus on the experience of the product. In fact, the experience becomes the product. Good examples can be found in the changing environment of the music industry where owning cd’s is being traded for owning the experience of music.

I therefore see three trends that especially support emotion-driven innovation and design:

1. 1. Companies realize that they can only reach new competitive advantages by going beyond quality, functionality and reliability. They will have to design experiences that are both pleasurable and meaningful.
2. 2. Brands that are able to change followers into fans have proven to be hard to beat. The advantages that go along with having fans are humongous.
3. 3. Experience takes a central role. The experience becomes the product.
   .

Strategic considerations to design for emotion

Designing products with an emotional fit requires an integrated approach in which tools that measure the emotional impact of products go hand in hand with in-depth knowledge about the goals, attitudes, norms and values of consumers. Designing for an intended emotional impact includes an iterative but constructive approach in which the designer focuses on a consumer’s personal values and a product’s targeted ‘emotional impact’ to design specific interventions that support these.

With the Get Emocional! workshop we engage participants in a hands-on ‘design for emotion’ experience. By introducing a systematic approach to designing products that deliberately elicit predefined emotional responses, the workshop aims to facilitate a shift from an intuitive to a structured and manageable perspective on user emotion in conceptual design processes.

Based on personal experiences, participants first explore universal principles in how emotions are elicited, using structures drawn from recent emotion theory. In the second stage, participants employ their newly drawn insights in a design application.

The workshop includes bite size pieces of theory plus various practical exercises to let participants apply the theory and experience the process themselves.

The following strategic steps form the basic concepts to integrate emotions successfully: Understanding emotion, Measuring emotion and Designing for emotion.

Understanding emotion

This is about the conceptual models and theory that explain how people experience products and how emotions are evoked and impact our everyday lives.

Measuring emotion

How can we measure emotions and unveil the emotional impact of a product? In the workshop some of the latest tools that are developed in the academic and corporate field will be demonstrated and explained.

Design for emotion

Participants will use the presented theoretical framework as a starting point to learn how to design a product to evoke specific emotions.

Gain a unique competitive advantage

Influencing the behaviour and satisfaction of your customers has never been more effective. Even though it is not possible to design an experience in itself, measuring experiences and more specifically emotional experience will give you a head start. It enables you to design interventions that will create great experiences that are both authentic and meaningful.

SusaGroup

SusaGroup is a strategic design consultancy with a particular focus on emotion as the key to create better, more enjoyable products and services and meaningful experiences in the end. SusaGroup combines scientific competences with market insights in the development and application of innovative, valid, and relevant tools to measure emotions. SusaGroup advises and trains several large corporations and FMCG’s in improving their products and services based on insights in the emotions of their customers. Clients included companies such as Unilever, Mars, Microsoft, BIC, Toyota and Philips.

My favorites:

Don’t turn this bus into a garbage truck

Stop human trafficking

Zoo ad

Olga also posted an article with similar bag examples. Great stuff! Here are some really good ones:

This new packaging concept for cigarettes from recent UK design graduates Jennifer Noon and Sarah Shaw is in response to the British government’s controversial proposal for plain packaging, which purports that bland and generic cigarette packages devoid of company logos or art would make health warnings more prominent. (Which is not to say that labels wouldn’t work.) (Source: Core 77)

BRIEF Australia has attracted a lot of press attention in recent months on cigarette packaging. The British government are considering introducing plain packaging to the UK. Here is the response.

RESPONSE The main aim was to change the structure of the pack making it less ergonomic. The pack was developed to be difficult to use and carry. For the warning imagery focusing on aspects which would appeal to the users vanity

Be sure to also check out these interesting articles:

• Intentionally Inefficient Cigarette Packaging Design Concept (Core77)
• Can Annoying Cigarette Packs Make Smokers Quit? (FastcoDesign)

Using negative emotions for pleasurable experiences – The Dark Side of Enjoyment

If you like to turn things around and learn a bit more about how you can use negative emotions to design for more pleasurable and richer experiences, you should check out Steven Fokkinga’s research. He states that:

…in life people have many experiences that involve negative emotions, but which are nonetheless engaging and even enjoyable. Furthermore, these experiences are not enjoyable despite the involvement of negative emotions, but rather because of them.

His paper ‘The Dark Side of Enjoyment’ was a real hit at the last Design and Emotion Conference in Chicago, as it shows an interesting, uncommon yet practical approach. He proposes four basic benefits of negative emotions: negative emotions (A) empower for action, (B) signify intriguing boundaries, (C) intensify achievement, and (D) enable contemplation. His paper will soon be available in the online library of the Design & Emotion Society website (launch September 1st).