Emotional Design
One of the most interesting things I have learned since beginning my studies in human-centered design at Northwestern is the idea of designing products that produce emotional responses. Product design is not always about making something that adequately solves a need, but also to create products that make people feel something. In my elective course, Designing Product Interactions, we were tasked with designing a box that would trigger a specific emotion within the users. My team set out to design a 16” x 12” x 4” box that made users feel hesitant, making them "think twice" and "express cautiousness about what is to happen and what is inside."
The Gap? To design truly extraordinary product interactions, one must consider how design decisions can make an impact on the users. Our team was faced with the challenge of designing a box that could make unknowing users feel hesitant.
The Solution? An eerie black handle atop a wooden box invited observers to turn the handle, while making them question what they might find on the inside. Creaking sounds of increasing intensity made participants question whether to continue, as demonstrated in the video below. |
Process
When we first set out to brainstorm ideas on how to make users think twice about opening our box, we came up with a number of ideas. including but not limited to the following:
- A box which as you turned the handle to open it, a water gun would slowly rise up, pointing at the person opening it
- A candy box that would make it more difficult to snag a treat, or one that made sounds alerting those around you that you were succumbing to your sweet tooth
- A safe that parents could use to keep important things away from their children, that made kids think twice about trying to open it
- Our chosen design: a box which causes hesitation by making the users think they are going to break the box as they try to open it.
Physical Design
We laser cut the plywood walls to fit together like puzzle pieces for easy assembly and strong construction. A string attached to the handle slowly opened the hinged wooded flap, while also triggering varying readings on a distance sensor hidden inside the box, to indicate how far the handle had been turned. The biggest challenges we faced were adding resistance to the handle so that users would not spin the handle too quickly. We used a weight attached to the handle and some rubber sheets to add resistance to the rotation.
|
Mechatronics DesignWe used an Arduino to measure how far the box door had been opened and then trigger different creaking sounds as it was opened. At different thresholds within the sensor's range, we printed a letter to the Serial screen. We then used Processing.org to play the sounds from a computer. Each letter corresponded to a different sound clip, and a bluetooth speaker within the box made it sound as if the box was breaking as the handle turned. Our biggest challenges on the mechatronics were writing the logic so that a single sounded wasn't triggered repeated within the threshold, and learning how to make the Arduino and Processing communicate.
|
Emotional Box Impact
I learned a tremendous amount through this project. I was responsible for wiring the distance sensor and programming the Arduino, and we all worked together troubleshooting the physical and programming challenges we faced in putting the pieces together. The troubleshooting involved in building a product that was both physical and electronic, in addition to the huge focus on how all of the materials, sounds, aesthetics, and feel of the product interaction might prompt an emotional reaction, was an incredible experience, and it will definitely make me a better designer in the future.