(I've with UXBrisbane's blessing made use of their content here) Thanks Ash D

The first book we'll be discussing is Donald A. Norman's ”Emotional Design”.

Did you ever wonder why cheap wine tastes better in fancy glasses? Why sales of Macintosh computers soared when Apple introduced the colorful iMac? New research on emotion and cognition has shown that attractive things really do work better, a fact fans of Don Norman's classic The Design of Everyday Things cannot afford to ignore. In recent years, the design community has focused on making products easier to use. But as Norman amply demonstrates in this fascinating and important new book, design experts have vastly underestimated the role of emotion on our experience of everyday objects.Emotional Design analyzes the profound influence of this deceptively simple idea, from our willingness to spend thousands of dollars on Gucci bags and Rolex watches to the impact of emotion on the everyday objects of tomorrow. In the future, will inanimate objects respond to human emotions? Is it possible to create emotional robots? Norman addresses these provocative questions–drawing on a wealth of examples and the latest scientific insights–in this bold exploration of the objects in our everyday world.

I know many of you own a copy and may have read it a while ago, but it's good to go back and review the arguments Norman proposed in 2004 and should make for some lively discussion.

For those of you who do not own a copy, finding it in local book stores may be difficult, but it's readily available on Amazon. Ordering through Amazon will probably be delivered faster than ordering through Australian book sites.

To get you started here are the first two freely available sections of the book:

• Prologue - Three Teapots (537 kB PDF); and
• Chapter 1 - Attractive Things Work Better (245kB PDF).

Full reference: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman. Published by Basic Books on May 10, 2005. 272 pages. ISBN: 978-0465051366

For further discussion by 'The Don', here's:

• A short YouTube video (6min 07sec) in which Dr. Don Norman discusses Emotional Design with the Ford Motor Company; and
• A Two Part Interview with Lunar Design's John Edson.

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