P.M.A. Desmet

Measuring emotion: development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products

This chapter described the initial version of PrEmo (PrEmo1) that was introduced in 2002. Since its introduction, PrEmo1 was used to measure emotions evoked by a wide variety of products and other designed stimuli, such as wheelchairs (Desmet and Dijkhuis in Proceedings of the international conference on designing pleasurable products and interfaces. ACM publishing, New York, 2003), automotive design (Desmet and Hekkert in Automotive mechatronics design and engineering. ISATA, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1998), mobile phones (Desmet et al. in J Knowl Technol Policy, 20(3):141–155, 2007), airplane meals, and functional fragrances (Desmet and Schifferstein in Product innovation toolbox: a field guide to consumer understanding and research, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2012), serving both as a means for generating insights for new product conceptualization and as a means for evaluating the emotional impact of new design concepts.

Sources of positive and negative emotions in food experience

Emotions experienced by healthy individuals in response to tasting or eating food were examined in two studies. In the first study, 42 participants reported the frequency with which 22 emotion types were experienced in everyday interactions with food products, and the conditions that elicited these emotions. In the second study, 124 participants reported the extent to which they experienced each emotion type during sample tasting tests for sweet bakery snacks, savoury snacks, and pasta meals. Although all emotions occurred from time to time in response to eating or tasting food, pleasant emotions were reported more often than unpleasant ones. Satisfaction, enjoyment, and desire were experienced most often, and sadness, anger, and jealousy least often. Participants reported a wide variety of eliciting conditions, including statements that referred directly to sensory properties and experienced consequences, and statements that referred to more indirect conditions, such as expectations and associations. Five different sources of food emotions are proposed to represent the various reported eliciting conditions: sensory attributes, experienced consequences, anticipated consequences, personal or cultural meanings, and actions of associated agents.

A Multilayered Model of Product Emotions

This paper introduces a theoretical basis for the process that underlies emotional responses to consumer products. Five distinct classes of product-evoked emotions are discussed, each of which are the outcome of a unique pattern of eliciting conditions. The framework for these patterns was drawn from a model that reveals the cognitive basis of product emotions. The main proposition of this model is that emotional reactions result from an appraisal process in which the individual appraises a product as (potentially) harming, or favouring one or several of their concerns. In this perspective the concern and the appraisal are considered key parameters that determine if a product evokes an emotion and if so what emotion is evoked. Because each of the five classes of product emotions (i.e. instrumental, aesthetic, social, surprise, and interest emotions) is discussed in terms of these key parameters, it can be used to explain the complex and often personal nature of product emotions, and support designers in their efforts to design for emotion.

The effects of sensory impairments on product experience and personal well-being.

To determine the roles that the sensory modalities play in user – product interactions, one modality was blocked during the execution of eight simple tasks. Participants reported how they experienced the products and how they felt during the experiment. Blocking vision resulted in the largest loss of functional information, increased task difficulty and task duration, and fostered dependency. On the other hand, the other senses were used more and product experiences increased in perceived intenseness. When touch was blocked, the perceived loss of information was smaller and participants reported that familiar products felt less like their own. Blocking audition resulted in communication problems and a feeling of being cut off. Blocking olfaction mainly decreased the intenseness of the experience. These outcomes suggest that vision mainly plays a functional role in everyday user – product interactions, whereas the main role for olfaction lies in the affective domain. Sensory impairments change the way people experience products. Blocking a single modality during everyday tasks gives insight into the impact of impairments. These insights can be used to develop products for multiple user groups (inclusive design) or products used under extreme environmental conditions.

A wheelchair can be fun: a case of emotion-driven design

In this paper an approach to emotion-driven design is introduced and demonstrated with a childrens wheelchair design case. First, emotional responses towards existing wheelchairs have been assessed with a non-verbal self-report instrument. The results of this assessment were transformed to starting points for a new design with the use of a theoretical model of product emotions. With these starting points a new design was created and detailed into a working prototype. In a second study, the emotional impact of the new design was evaluated. It was found that, with respect to the emotional impact, this new design differentiates in a positive way from existing models. In the light of these findings, it is discussed how theoretical and empirical knowledge can assist designers in their attempts to manipulate the emotional impact of their designs.

Comfort effects of a new car headrest with neck support

This paper describes the design of a neck-/headrest to increase car comfort. Two studies were undertaken to create a new comfortable headrest with neck support. In experiment one, neck- and headrest data were gathered using 35 test subjects. The pressure distribution, stiffness of the foam material and position of the head and neck support were determined. In experiment two a full adjustable final headrest with adjustable neck support was constructed and tested with 12 subjects using a new adjustable headrest under virtual reality driving conditions. Experiment two showed that the headrest with the new/adjustable neck support was favoured by the majority of the subjects. 83% were satisfied with the stiffness of the material. 92% were satisfied with the size of the neck- and headrest. All subjects mentioned that the neck support is a comfort benefit in calm traffic conditions or on the motorway.

Tools Facilitating Multi-sensory Product Design

ABSTRACT During user–product interactions, all sensory modalities are open to receive information. Therefore, sensory impressions obtained through hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling may all contribute to the users product experience. This paper gives an overview of tools that can help designers to determine and obtain the desired forms of sensory stimulation for their designs. We discuss these tools along four topics: sensitizing designers, sampling objects with sensory qualities, making and using sensory building blocks, and communicating with others. For each topic and each modality, multiple tools are discussed that can all contribute to a multi-sensory design approach. Using this approach provides designers with ideas for new product functionalities and new ways to provide sensory feedback during user–product interaction. In addition, it improves coherence in the experiences that their designs evoke.

15 – PRODUCT EMOTION

Publisher Summary Emotion is a central quality of human existence, and most of one’s behavior, motivation, and thought is enriched with and influenced by emotions. One’s relationship with the world is essentially affective, which means that all the interactions imply and involve emotions, whether these are interactions with the social world or with the material one. A product, or using a product, can elicit disappointment, attraction, shame, pride, disgust, contempt, admiration, satisfaction, fear, anger, and any other emotion a person may also experience in response to events, people, or actions of people. This chapter provides a general analysis of the phenomenon emotion, focusing on some basic questions: what is emotion, how can it be differentiated from other affective phenomena, what manifestations are associated with it, why do humans experience it, and how is it elicited? The review provides some basic answers to these questions that on the one hand are drawn from recent insights in emotion theory and on the other hand are not estranged from the everyday notion of what (product) emotion is. Some of the latest insights in emotion psychology are discussed, building on fundamental contributions to the science of emotion. Besides emotion, mood and affect disposition are also briefly discussed because they influence, and are related to, emotion. This chapter provides some background knowledge and a foundation for the model and sources of product emotions. It introduces the key variables of a basic product emotion model that was developed on the basis of an appraisal approach to emotion. In addition, two alternative approaches to product emotion are discussed: the pleasure approach of Jordan (2000), and the process-level approach of Norman (2004). Furthermore, it discusses sources of product emotions and uses examples to illustrate the different ways in which product emotion can be elicited.

Moving Design: To Design Emotion Through Movement

An emotion reveals itself with dynamic bodily expressions. These expressions are not only manifestations of the emotion but also influence the emotional experience: a feeling can be an experienced emotional expression. This paper discusses the case study Learning to Talk with Your Body, which was designed to explore the possibility of using expressive movement for creating products that elicit predefined emotional responses. Six objects were designed, each expressing a distinct emotion: anger, fear, sadness, joy, pleasant surprise or attraction. The aim was to develop an educational product that can be used to teach children, aged between four and six, how to emotionally express themselves with their bodies. The objects were designed to express the given emotions in their static appearances and (interactive) dynamic movements. An evaluation study with prototypes of the objects confirmed that the quality or character of a movement that is required to interact with a product influences the users emotional responses to the product. This paper reports the design and evaluation of the objects, and discusses the implications of the concept of ‘design for movement’ for designing products that have an intended emotional impact.

PMRI: development of a pictorial mood reporting instrument

Mood capturing techniques are being used in research settings (e.g., lab evaluation and experience sampling) and to facilitate mood communication in mediated interaction (e.g., instant messaging and blogging). Instruments currently available tend to be either limited in expression or overly demanding. In this paper we describe our work-in-progress on the development of PMRI, a rich and easy-to-use pictorial mood-reporting instrument.