Emotion and industrial design: Reconciling meanings and feelings

Industrial design is a form-giving process which addresses the surface appearance of objects in relation to function and construction (Smets & Overbeeke, 1995). The object must fulfil a certain function, provide relevant controls, and ergonomically fit the user. Typically, the user-object interface has been analyzed from a cognitive/behavioural viewpoint focusing on the utilization of these designed objects. An emphasis is placed on cognitive processes involved in the acquisition of skills needed to use the object and on the behavioural processes that underlie performance with it. Emotional processes involved in generating and using industrial design objects have only begun to be explicated. They begin with an initial impression of the object, continue through actual experiences utilizing it, and culminate with degrees of emotional attachment to it. The strategy used in this paper involved distinguishing the kinds of meaning which might be attached to industrial design objects and then considering how they relate to emotional processes. Three kinds of meaning attached to industrial design objects were distinguished: sensory/aesthetic, cognitive/behavioural, and personal/symbolic. These were related to two contrasting emotional processes associated with action and reaction.