From GUI to E(motional) UI

How ironic that we think we can get more exact results from our computers by emulating human interaction, but when we want exact results from human interaction, we unintentionally emulate computers. Engineering, air traffic control, legal contracts--in all endeavors where precise communication is critical--our success has depended on washing out human emotion and natural language in favor of formal procedures and protocols, complete with a detailed domain-specific language.

Agro, Leandro. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Interface>Emotions

Global Market, Global Emotion, Global Design?

In the current discussion of where design is going and what matters, there is an emphasis on the user and his or her (emotional) experience. It is a hot topic in books, blogs and the minds of industrial designers and interaction designers, worldwide. The importance of a focus on (emotional) experiences in addition to a merely technological or functional focus is being stressed by professionals with many different cultural backgrounds.

van Hout, Marco. uiGarden. Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions

Personas, Goals, and Emotional Design

When Don Norman's most recent book, Emotional Design, hit the shelves in early 2004, it sent a ripple through the user experience world. Norman introduced the idea that product design should address three different levels of cognitive and emotional processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. This idea seemed like old news to some and a revelation to others in the UX community. In either case, Norman's ideas, based on years of cognitive research, provide an articulated structure for modeling user responses to product and brand and a rational context for many intuitions long held by professional designers.

Reimann, Robert. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Emotions>Personas

Emotional Intelligence: Putting Theory into Practice

Social and emotional learning may seem difficult to teach, but there are activities out there that can help.

Edutopia (2008). Articles>Education>Emotions>User Centered Design

Are We There Yet? Effects of Delay on User Perceptions of Web Sites

One of the chronic challenges that will be highlighted by emotional design is site download speed. There are many sources of delay in Web site and application delivery.

Straub, Kathleen. Human Factors International (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Emotions

Fast-Downloading Websites are Still Important

People are impatient on the Web. They are function and task orientated. They want to get things done as quickly as possible. The average person is still accessing the Web over a 56 KB modem. You should therefore have a major focus on 'light' webpages if you want to increase reader-satisfaction.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Emotions

Lessons Learned with Quick Reference Guides: Timing and Truth

I should never fully trust anyone on a project. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, because I work with competent, talented professionals. But no one has the full picture of how the application will truly work. The quality assurance (QA) engineer usually has the clearest picture. The program manager and project manager are often living in a slightly different world, full of a vision of how the product should work and how they expect users to interact with it, but sometimes they’re missing important nuances in the actual implementation. The interaction designer builds prototypes and assumes the developers will build them to spec, but since the prototypes are usually HTML-based, and not in Java or .NET, variances are inevitable.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Emotions

Overload, Shmoverload

We don't really know what attention is, despite all the mumbo-jumbo spouted by Nobel laureates. My guess: most of what people say about attention is hogwash: mere anecdotes, or flimsy cultural norms offered up in a 'be productive, be happy' wrapper. Whenever business thinkers seek to apply an economic metaphor to human cognition, it is a mess: remember "knowledge management"?

Boyd, Stowe. SlideShare (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions