Affective design

The notion of affective design emerged from the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) (Norman, 1986) and more specifically from the developing area of affective computing (Picard, 1997).

Aims

Affective computing aims to deliver affective interfaces (Reynolds, Picard, 2001) capable of eliciting certain emotional experiences from users (McCarthy, Wright, 2004). Similarly, affective design attempts to define the subjective emotional relationships between consumers and products and to explore the affective properties that products intend to communicate through their physical attributes. It aims to deliver artefacts capable of eliciting maximum physio-psychological pleasure consumers may obtain through all of their senses.

Saul Carliner listed affective design as the third level of a three-part model of Information Design.

References

Carliner, S. (2000) “Physical, Cognitive, and Affective: A Three-Part Framework for Information Design” [online], available: http://saulcarliner.home.att.net/id/newmodel.htm [accessed 10th January 2007]

Reynolds, C. and Picard, R. (2001) Designing for Affective Interactions. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, August 5 - 10, 2001, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. [online], available: http://vismod.media.mit.edu/pub/tech-reports/TR-541.pdf