1. Select a brief passage from Chapter Three Emotional Design by Donald Norman and post it on your blog. Explain why you thought it was interesting.
"The principles underlying visceral design are wired in, consistent across people and cultures. If you design according to these rules, your design will always be attractive, even if somewhat simple. If you design for the sophisticated, for the reflective level, your design can readily become dated because this level is sensitive to cultural differences, trends in fashion, and continual fluctuation. Today's sophistication runs the risk of becoming tomorrows discard. Great designs, like great art and literature, can break the rules and survive forever, but only a few are gifted enough to be great."
I thought this passage was so interesting because it highlights the importance of simplicity when designing. I think it's very easy for designers to get carried away and overload design to try to make it unique and new. I totally agree that good design should be able to cross cultural borders, and that the visceral level is whats really important when attracting people to a design.
2. Norman uses the terms Visceral Design, Behavioral Design, Reflective Design. Do these categories seem useful to you? Would other names or phrases make the categories clearer?
Yes, I think that categories are useful for defining and organizing ideas, and I found them really helpful when I read the chapter. I think that visceral design is an excellent name, although I think behavioral design and reflective design are a bit confusing. Behavioral design is about use and function, and the name could be clearer. Reflective design is about message and meaning, and I think it too could be better named...however I don't know what I would call them instead-- maybe functional design and image design.