A series of recommendations for industrial design conceptualizing based on emotional design

Abstract

Emotional design, since its birth in the 70s, has developed into becoming one of the main forces that drive design nowadays. The capability of understanding the user’s feelings and emotions is considered to be a pivotal part of the design process. More than ever before, industrial designers need to consider the emotional side of consumers to create meaningful and successful products. The present study created a series of recommendations for Industrial Design Conceptualizing based on Emotional Design. These were developed through the analysis of several design emotion-based methodologies, conceptualization theories, and emotional design itself. The recommendations were developed to be applied in the conceptualization phase, for it is at this stage of the design process when the designer gives shape to the initial concept that will ultimately become a product. After its completion, to validate the recommendations, these were handed to a group of eight industrial design students who applied them on one of their academic projects. The results of their works were subjected to analysis to determine the impact on their projects. Students were also asked their opinion about emotional design and the recommendations they were given. Principal results evidence that only 15% of the students knew about emotional design before being introduced by the present research. Five out of eight of the resulting projects managed to incorporate values and concepts related to emotional design. It reflects that the resulting ultimate products can be influenced by the capabilities of designers to use the recommendations. It could be concluded that the recommendations could be of great interest for industrial design to transmit emotions to products which could satisfy consumers emotional desires.