“Emotions guide and enrich life; they provide meaning to everyday existence.” The experiential or emotional quality of products is becoming more and more important for differential advantage in the marketplace. Emotionally engaged customers do not choose your product, but rather feel it is the right product for them.

Since 2003 Marco van Hout has been studying the experiential impact and more specifically the emotional experience of products, brands and services. He is co-founder and creative director of SusaGroup, a strategic design agency with a particular focus on emotion as the key to create better, more enjoyable and meaningful products. SusaGroup combines scientific competences with market insights in the development and application of innovative, valid, and relevant tools to measure emotions.

Marco is board member of the International Design for Emotion Society, which raises issues and facilitates dialogue among practitioners, researchers and industry in order to integrate salient themes of emotional experience into the design profession.

He is often invited to speak on the topic of design and emotion on various occasions both nationally as internationally. As a visiting lecturer, he teaches and has taught at The Design Academy Eindhoven, Willem de Kooning Academy, University of Twente, Hogeschool Utrecht and Rotterdam University (a university of Applied Sciences).

You can find Marco at his weblog www.design-emotion.com or follow him @demadera on Twitter.

Demadera

Next to his day job, Marco is also an experienced (abstract) painter. Since his early childhood, art and painting have been a true passion.

You can find his art work at www.marcovanhout.nl. Some of the paintings are also for sale, if you are interested.

SusaGroup

Monito Design & Internet

Monito is a creative and innovative organisation that offers advice, design and implementation of corporate and experience design and internet applications for local government, research institutions, and companies. We distinguish ourselves with flexible, reliable and user friendly solutions.

Visit our website: www.monito.nl