Integrating emotions into product design : a framework for "design for emotion assistance"

Abstract

The ever-increasing competitiveness in product design is resulting in good product functionality and usability, no longer being sufficiently effective differentiators in the market place. As a result, stakeholders' attention is shifting to other product attributes termed "supra-functional", meaning beyond the functional, such as the emotions experienced during interaction, Designing for product-emotions (DFe) in therefore an emerging field in product design which is being accredited increasing importance. However, input from design practice together with a literature review conducted, has shown that there is a general lack of knowledge on the elicitation of product emotions. A critical review conducted has also established that the state of the art DFe assistance in inadequate and that there is the need for new improved methods that support DFe.