Poetically rich experiences: The interplay between affect and cognition

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of art used to facilitate emotional experiences through imagery. In poetic form, ordinary experiences become intriguing, engaging and mentally challenging. With its many positive effects, poetry has much to offer to experience designers. Experience-driven design is a field that steadily seeks innovative ways to enrich product experiences. The current paper is lead by the proposition that understanding the intricate nature of everyday poetic experiences will inspire design for rich experiences. Borrowing perspectives from the fields of art, philosophy, psychology, and experience design, it introduces a new notion of ‘poetically rich product experiences’ and concludes that poetic richness emerges from unusually high and concurrent stimulation during cognitive and affective processes underlying product experiences. Understanding poetic richness will provide designers deeper insights into the expressive nature of products. Consequently, products can assume a unique poetic function that triggers users to bodily respond and intellectually reflect on daily phenomena abstracted into poetic experiences.