belated week 2

TED - Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy

After watching Don Norman's video, i learnt about his theory of emotions as related to Design & creativity

1. Think about the role of emotions/mindset in the creative process. Remember the example he cited. Recall any brainstorming sessions you conducted before (as well as the in-class exercise earlier) - were the sessions conducted effectively? Why/not?

He added a fun element into the product he was designing.

He also talked about the example of connecting the two strings together. the first group did not managed to solve it. However second group solved the task. He gave them a packed of sweets before telling them the task and after they ate them, they are happy and they manage to solve the task.

There was once i was told to teach a bunch of children lessons for an hour or two. I brought sweets into the class and gave it to them whenever they got the correct answer. They were so eager to eat the sweets that they immediately sat up and listen to what I have to say attentively. In another similar situation, I tried playing games before the lesson starts, and it engaged them.

The element of fun and being creative does not only apply into situations we are in but it also applies to whatever we are designing, such as the example of the table tennis with the ripples and fishes that Don Norman gave.

2. reflection about the interplay/interaction of the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective layers in a designed object and how they evoke emotions.

Visceral:

1.	characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect: a visceral reaction.

2.	characterized by or dealing with coarse or base emotions; earthy; crude: a visceral literary style.

Emotion and behavior

l Cognition interprets and understands the world around you, while emotions allow you to make quick decisions about it.

l Usually, you react emotionally to a situation before you assess it cognitively, since survival is more important than understanding.

Positive emotions make a huge difference. Isen’s results show that when people are relaxed and happy, their thought processes expand, becoming more creative, more imaginative.

In the role of aesthetics in design proves that happy people are more effective in finding solutions and as a result are tolerant of minor difficulties.

Design complexity can be categories into 3 levels of processing, visceral, behavior and reflective. In some occasions, culture may also seem to be in the picture. One’s culture may not be appealing to another’s culture. An example is such that the teenage culture seems to do things in their own way, reason is because they do not like to follow the adult culture.

Imagination- One of the powers of the human mind is its ability to dream, to imagine, and to plan for the future. We humans have the unique ability to imagine things before they happen. In this creative soaring of the mind, thought and cognition unleash emotion, and are in turn changed themselves.

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”—William Morris “The Beauty of Life,” 1880

REVERSAL METHOD: You use it by asking the exact opposite of the question you want answered, and then apply the results appropriately.

The Chain Reaction is a simple method using quick thought associations, leading to rapid insights, to help you generate new ideas to improve a service or modify a product.

Developed by Bob Eberle, the changes SCAMPER stands for are:

• S - Substitute - components, materials, people
• C - Combine - mix, combine with other assemblies or services, integrate
• A - Adapt - alter, change function, use part of another element
• M - Modify - increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modifyattributes (e.g. colour)
• P - Put to another use
• E - Eliminate - remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality
• R - Reverse - turn inside out or upside down, also use of Reversal.