Kin Wai Michael Siu

Emotion Design, Emotional Design, Emotionalize Design: A Review on Their Relationships from a New Perspective

ABSTRACT Many design researchers and scholars have focused on different aspects of design and emotion in recent years. Various studies, models and theories have been proposed and adopted in order to explore the relationship between design and emotion and its responses, and to explain how emotion could be applied in design effectively. Researchers have also developed different perspectives to understand what emotional design should be and the role of emotion in design. Some of them have considered emotion design as a tool that designers can use to deliver their messages and emotions, while others have believed that it is a kind of experience and response when an individual is using an object. Meanwhile, some researchers have regarded emotional design as a means to establish consumer expression, and as a representation of the users identity or personality. The relationships between ‘design and emotion’ and ‘users’ responses were preliminarily explored. Another similar term, emotionalize design, has been used to explain how emotions play an explicit role in design reflection, rationality and feeling. Few studies, however, have been carried out to explore the relationship between these terms, what they actually mean in their own role and how they interact with each other in the big picture of design and emotion. This paper aims to explore and illustrate the basic concepts and definitions of emotion design, emotional design and emotionalize design to help us further understand how these are closely related to human-oriented design activities. It will introduce and review these concepts, and explore their relationships from a new perspective. Based on these insights and analysis, a new model concept will be described to identify their differences by defining their meanings, in which both designers and users play an important role.