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Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love

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    So feelings clearly matter in a user interface. That's why we worry about user experience. But depending on the kind of product, the kind of service, the kind of system you're creating, then feelings matter in different ways. So I'm going to distinguish two major ways this can be. So first of all, where emotion is the primary goal of what you're designing.

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    So eliciting that emotion is the very purpose of the product. So think about art. Think about games, entertainment applications in general. What you're trying to do is create a *sense of emotion* in the person. That's the primary goal. Other things are secondary. Now, in order to satisfy that primary goal, you often need to get *good functionality* and *good usability*.

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    So when you’re wanting to choose what movie to watch, you want to be able to find, perhaps, the box set that you know is there and the right episode of it as efficiently as possible. So you still have these fundamental usability requirements, even if the primary goal is emotion. But it's often the things that serve that. So think about again, if you're going to share a picture you just taken a picture of, whether it's a meal you're eating

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    or your cats or whatever else you're wanting to share, the sharing is about the emotional impact that you're wanting to pass on to other people, to your friends, and to your family. However, when you take that photograph, you want a very efficient, slick and easy process to actually get that shared on your social media channels. So, again, although emotion is the primary purpose of what you're doing, you still need the usability and functionality in order to support that process.

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    Alternatively, emotion might be a secondary goal. So the primary purpose might be something that's more, shall we say, business like. It might be about your work. So like I'm doing now, producing this video, it might be about office work, might be using a spreadsheet, using a database, might be about getting your money from the ATM and get the money out of the hole in the wall.

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    It might be about paying using your card in a restaurant. But the thing you're trying to do at that point, the primary goal is to get the thing done efficiently and effectively. However, typically, emotions help. They help in the sense that if you're doing, say, a repetitive job, then being alert is important. You know, this is true whether you're a policeman on the beat and watching out, or a soldier in a battlefield situation.

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    Whether you're driving your car and needing to sort of have a little bit of peripheral awareness. So emotion helps you do that. It helps you keep alert so that you're ready for things. So if you think about online shopping. Some of online shopping is about getting the job done and getting the thing purchased. But there's also an aspect of shopping, this is particularly true of offline shopping. Of when you go into a clothes shop where

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    the actual process of doing the shopping is part of the joy of the shopping. It's harder to do that online, incidentally. But there are some brands where that is the thing you’re trying to do. You're trying to create a sense of identity in the brand, a sense of joy in exploring it. So within the same kind of application area, online shopping, depending on the brand and depending on the person's need at that moment,

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    you might want to emphasize one or the other.

What separates great products from good ones? Attractive designs? User testing? Genius designers? Well, these might be contributory factors, but the true distinction lies in how they make users feel. Every experience has an emotional component, and using products is no different. Incorporating emotion should, therefore, be a key consideration when designing products or websites. This course will provide you with an understanding of emotional responses and how to create designs that encourage them.

An understanding of emotional design—how users feel and what affects these feelings—is essential if you want to provide great user experiences. There are probably things near you right now that are not necessarily the best, and they might not even be particularly attractive, but you are nonetheless still using them. Take a seashell from your favorite beach, or your very first tennis racket, for example; they are meaningful to you, and you consequently feel a connection to them. These connections are powerful; they subconsciously affect you and have the capacity to turn inanimate objects into evocative extensions of you as an individual.

In this course, we will provide you with the information necessary to elicit such positive emotional experiences through your designs. Human-computer interaction (HCI) specialist Alan Dix provides video content for each of the lessons, helping to crystallize the information covered throughout the course. By the end of it, you will have a better understanding of the relationship between people and the things they use in their everyday lives and, more importantly, how to design new products and websites which elicit certain emotional responses.

What You’ll Learn

  • The relationship between emotion and design, and how to tap into it for more effective designs.

  • How human factors affect the emotional responses to a design, with real-life examples.

  • How to design for positive emotional experiences.

  • What the “Triune Brain” is, and how to apply it to your work.

  • The difference between visceral, behavioral and reflective design, and how to encourage positive visceral, behavioral and reflective processing.

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

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Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliament, State of New York

Is This Course Right for You?

This is an intermediate-level course recommended for anyone involved in the design process of a product or website:

  • UX, UI, and web designers keen on designing products that elicit the right emotional response from users, and thus keep them engaged
  • Project managers interested in making their products cater to the users’ emotions
  • Software engineers looking to understand how to target users’ emotional responses more effectively
  • Entrepreneurs who want to ship products that users are engaged with and respond positively towards
  • Marketers interested in creating the right emotional response in customers across all touch-points
  • Newcomers to design who are considering making a switch to UX, UI, or web design

Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and Work with a Global Team of Designers

You’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design.

Course Overview: What You'll Master

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There's no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 22 hours 53 mins spread over 9 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 43 mins.

Lesson 1: What Do We Mean by 'Emotion'? An Introduction to Emotional Design

Available once you start the course. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 49 mins.

Lesson 2: How Products Affect Us: Emotional Responses, Connections and Associations

Available anytime after Apr 15, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 59 mins.

Lesson 3: Visceral, Behavioral and Reflective Design - Don Norman's Three Levels of Design

Available anytime after Apr 22, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 51 mins.

Lesson 4: Affect and Design: Designing Positive Emotional Experiences

Available anytime after Apr 29, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 29 mins.

Lesson 5: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Helping Users "Self-Actualize"

Available anytime after May 06, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 17 mins.

Lesson 6: The Triune Brain: Sorry, You Have to Please Three Brains, Not Just One

Available anytime after May 13, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 29 mins.

Lesson 7: Emotional Design: Applying the Knowledge

Available anytime after May 20, 2025. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 18 mins.

Lesson 8: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

Available anytime after May 27, 2025.

How Others Have Benefited

Maryna Revutska

Maryna Revutska, Ukraine

“Good length of each lesson, and open end questions helped me to remember the information really well. I love the videos with Alan Dix — he explains everything nicely!”

Marlene P. Naicker

Marlene P. Naicker, Netherlands

“The lessons are very thought provoking. Simple but complex - when you break them down.”

Emma Lundgren

Emma Lundgren, Australia

“I really liked this lesson. It makes it more obvious that we as designers have a far wider responsibility than just designing the interactions. The experience of a product starts way before a customer uses it, and continues on for much longer after it has been put down. Cool!”

See other reviews

How It Works

  1. Take online courses by industry experts

    Lessons are self-paced so you'll never be late for class or miss a deadline.

  2. Get a Course Certificate

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to prove your skills.

  3. Advance your career

    Use your new skills in your existing job or to get a new job in UX design. Get help from our community.

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Join us to take “Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

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Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love
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01
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