Situated emotion and its constructive role in collaborative design: A mixed-method study of experienced designers

Abstract

The process of design involves rich emotional experiences from resolving team conflict to breaking impasses to discovering creative insight. To explore emotion in designing we present a mixed-method study of experienced designers. Situated emotion is assessed by triangulating speech acoustics, electrodermal activity, and semantics with contextual inquiry of video data and retrospective self-reporting. We show the value of triangulating multimodal data in dealing with discrepancies amongst different measures. We present results to show how situated emotion mediates design work using multi-level model analysis. To conclude, we discuss how emotion relates to design ability and the role of emotion in designing. Finally, we reflect on the methodological approach we have taken and indicate directions for future emotion research in the process of design.