Emotionally Intelligent Design

We channel or avoid our emotions through technology 💻📲

Today we’re taking a critical look into emotionally intelligent design and the future of tech.

Get Involved with The Craft 🫱🏼‍🫲🏾

1. Get your spot in my 2 day masterclass (Sept 12 & 13)🎯

   1. 50% off Code: innovators (1 spot left)

   2. 40% off Code: earlyadopter (4 spots)

2. Save the date: Sept 17th. Join me for a workshop at Ikea in Amsterdam (Details to follow)

Chapters

• Emotions Make Us Human

• What Are Emotions?

• Don Norman's Three Levels of Emotional Processing

• Merging The Internal & External

• How Do We Identify Emotions?

• How Emotions Influence User Behavior and Decision-Making

• Aaron Walter’s Hierarchy of Needs

• How To Design For Emotional States

• 5 Good Tenets of Emotional Design

• 5 Core Methods to Create Emotionally Intelligent Design

• Ethical Considerations

• Future of Emotion Recognition Technology

Emotions Make Us Human

Emotions govern our life. Whether they are conscious, subconscious, expressed, or repressed, emotions are information. They drive our daily behavior, decisions, feelings, express, and get stored in the body if not felt and released.

We’re evolving out of a time period where the majority shamed emotions and disregarded them as serving any purpose. Some still find emotions something to be “overcome” by logic but according to science, the more intelligent the animal, the greater the emotion.¹ Emotions and cognition are mixed together so we cannot design for one without the other.

This means to be a designer, you must design for emotions.

What Are Emotions?

Darwin was wrong when he said that there were distinctive facial expressions coordinated with states of the nervous system. Since then, scientists have not agreed on a definition for what an emotion is.💀

I’m feeling bold, let’s try to do it here. 😂 Emotions are strong feelings that arise in response to internal or external stimuli. The American Psychology Association would add, “usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.”²

Here are the key components of emotions:

• Subjective experience (how we feel)

• Physiological response (bodily changes)

• Behavioral expression (how we act)

• Cognitive appraisal (how we interpret the situation)

For example, anxiety creates narrow thought process and happiness makes people more capable of brainstorming and creative thinking.

Don Norman's Three Levels of Emotional Processing

If you’re a designer, you’ve probably heard of Don Norman. In his book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things, he describes 3 levels of emotional processing:

1. Visceral (Present)

Unconscious, instinctive responses to external stimuli. It involves rapid judgments of good/bad or safe/dangerous, triggering immediate reactions. In design, it's about initial impact: appearance, touch, and feel.

Example: A child crying at a loud noise or instinctively breaking a fall with your hands. Animal equivalence: Lizards primarily operate at this level.

2. Behavioral (Present)

Where most everyday human behavior occurs. It's about experience translating into action and analyzing consequences, often subconsciously. In design, it focuses on function, performance, and usability.

Example: Driving a car while deep in thought or muscle memory in sports.

Animal equivalence: Dogs operate at this level.

3. Reflective (Past, Present, Future)

Involves conscious thought, interpretation, and reasoning. It can override other levels and is influenced by culture and education. In design, it encompasses brand identity, ownership, and customer interactions.

Example: Reflecting on and changing one's worldview.

Unique to humans: This is the highest level of analysis where the full impact of thoughts and emotions are experienced.

It may help you to think of these for specific impact, but there is interplay with all 3 levels; they affect and influence each other.

Merging The Internal & External

Emotions are built in early development in particular. The groundwork happens when we are small children. Neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, describes the internal and external aspect as interoception and exteroception. The world’s leading science journal, Nature says, “emotion perception arises from the merging of exteroceptive information with interoceptive information.”³ What’s the benefit of this? Generally speaking, long term memory + emotion keep us alive.