How EMOTION won this election; What this means for your emotion design strategy

By Frank Spillers

on November 10, 2016 - 4:40pm
Twitter trends shows Trump with higher activity

Summary: Emotion is not to be underestimated in human decision-making, as recent US elections and Twitter's analysis of election tweets show. In the same way candidates with the strongest emotional appeals get voters attention, so do designs. Emotion is important to confront in a design, but also should be measured and used as a tool to gain deeper user engagement.

As this analysis from Twitter shows, Trump won emotion. Politically he utilized all emotion (good and bad) to attract attention to his "fix America" message. His use of emotion attracted many voters, unpredicted by US media polls. So what does this mean for your user experience?

Design and Emotion: Designing for Mood

By Frank Spillers

on September 27, 2010 - 7:37pm

Glow 'Getting in the mood' is the name of a paper I'll be presenting at Design and Emotion in Chicago 5-7th October 2010. Since I'm getting in the mood for the conference ;-), here are some highlights of my latest thinking on mood, product design and interaction.

1. Currently product designers are missing out on mood.

More attention is paid to design for emotion than mood. Much of this has to do with the current state of mood research in product design: virtually non-existent.

The Science of Fun: How Fun Helps Improve Your Design

By Frank Spillers

on January 7, 2010 - 8:23pm

 

Pickurpine

Summary: Fun is important to design usability (Monk et al 2002; Overbeeke et. al. 2002; Hazzenzahl and Burmester 2001). Fun activates several important cognitive processes, known for centuries from games we have created and played. Think of a fun game you lasted played...These same processes make fun an important design usability tool.

First, fun loosens structured cognition making it easier to learn. Fun engages whole-brain learning by engaging our right-brain processes (in the right prefrontal cortex). 

What is Emotion Design? (A practical definition)

By Frank Spillers

on September 26, 2006 - 10:14am
Design and Emotion UX

 Two years ago, after returning from the Design and Emotion conference, I shared an extensive post on Emotion Design, a topic that has a lot of potential to open up new conversations about user experience and usability.  This week, the fifth conference, Design and Emotion 2006 takes place in Göteborg, Sweden. Since I wanted to attend the conference this year but couldn't, here is a practical definition of design and emotion that I hope you will enjoy.

So, what is emotion design?

 

1. The recognition that a sterile focus on function is not enough anymore in usability (emotion needs to be addressed as well). Here's more on Graphic Design vs. Usability...

Design and Emotion

By Frank Spillers

on August 4, 2004 - 9:01pm

emotion-design

This is a late post relating to my paper presentation at Design and Emotion 2004 (conference in Ankara, Turkey). The entry contains some new writing cut from the paper due to size constraints.

Related paper: "Emotion as a Cognitive Artifact and the Implications for Products that are Perceived as Pleasurable" by Frank Spillers in the Published Works section on the Experience Dynamics website.

So, what does emotion have to do with design?