This paper presents Donald Norman's three-level framework for emotional design—visceral, behavioral, and reflective—and applies it to a user study conducted with everyday consumer products including alarm clocks, vegetable peelers, espresso makers, and other items. Drawing on observations from structured testing sessions, the paper demonstrates how people differ in their design priorities: some favor appearance, others functionality, and still others brand prestige. The Jacob Jensen alarm clock and Martha Stewart vegetable peeler serve as central case studies, revealing how emotional responses and brand perception can powerfully shape product evaluations, sometimes overriding clear usability failures. The paper concludes that both products and people can be classified along these three design dimensions.
In his book Emotional Design, Donald Norman proposed a framework for analyzing products holistically — encompassing their attractiveness, their behavior, and the image they present to the user and to the owner. In this work, the different aspects of a product are identified with different levels of processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. These three levels translate into three different kinds of design.
Visceral design refers primarily to a product's initial impact — its appearance. Behavioral design is about look and feel: the total experience of using a product. Reflective design concerns one's thoughts afterward — how a product makes one feel, the image it portrays, and the message it sends to others about the owner's taste.
Consider the Jacob Jensen alarm clock: it ranks very high at the visceral and reflective levels. This clock is on exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art, and it is available for purchase at the museum gift shop. It is attractive, and its reflective value is high — after all, there is the prestige of the Museum of Modern Art behind it.
The study described below examined the implications of this theory across a range of everyday consumer products. Each tester judged three different items in each of several categories: alarm clocks, digital cameras, espresso makers, cell phones, websites, vegetable peelers, and wine-bottle openers.
The Jacob Jensen alarm clock is quite attractive — so much so that it is sold at the New York Museum of Modern Art. But this one item reveals all of the conflicts in design: appearance, functionality, prestige, and price. Beautiful and prestigious, yet nearly unusable. And expensive, for an alarm clock.
The Jensen clock was a particularly interesting test item because its striking appearance was matched by an equally striking lack of usability. This is clearly a design firm that focuses entirely on appearance, and just as clearly, no one at the Museum of Modern Art had evidently ever tried to use it. Usability was simply not a consideration in its design.
Instruction manuals, the study rediscovered, are on the whole simply horrid. This likely reflects a complete lack of interest on the part of consumer product companies, because it is not particularly difficult to write manuals properly. The Society for Technical Communication is filled with experienced professionals skilled in doing exactly this. The same could be said about usability more broadly — many people know how to build usable products. The failing is not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of application and, in many cases, a lack of concern.
One woman was so frustrated by her attempt to use the Jensen clock that the session had to be stopped. She was close to tears. Yet even though she was extremely frustrated by her struggles with the clock, she loved its looks. She kept returning to it as the session proceeded with other products. "I'm dying to buy this," she said, "but I couldn't. I couldn't use it. I wouldn't be able to buy it even if I wanted to. That's too bad."
Her love-hate relationship with the clock was puzzling. She kept looking at it: "The price is fine if you really like it. It looks like a quality clock. But I can't figure out how to use it. I can't even tell what time it is. I don't know what the first thing to do with it." A few minutes later she returned to it once more: "I could buy it and have someone else set it up for me — but then what would I do?"
Another woman, extremely competent with technology and quick to figure out all the other products, also balked at the Jensen clock. "I didn't even know how to read the time without the manual. Once you've read the manual, it makes sense." When told the price, however, she reacted sharply: "Sixty bucks!" she exclaimed. "No way. I like the concept. It would definitely look good on the wall and people would ask about it. Cool looking. I have no problem with unique objects for decoration, but not for function."
The contrast between the two women is notable. The first thought the price reasonable even though she could not use the clock. The second thought the price outrageous — yet conceded it would not be a bad price for a wall clock, since as a wall clock it would not matter if people could not tell the time. It would, she said, make for conversation.
"People categorized as visceral, behavioral, or reflective"
"Martha Stewart brand influences peeler judgments"
"Different products serve different design priorities"
These distinctions are the essence of the study's findings. Design is a complex business — not only because products themselves are complex, but because of the complexity of people and their needs.
You’re 47% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 3 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.