This blog discusses the role fun and games play in product designing. As we know, positive emotions facilitate coping with stress, and are essential for people’s curiosity and ability to learn. While fun and pleasure benefits positive emotions.
Japanese “crowded” and well-designed lunchbox is an excellent example. Kenji Ekuan consider lunchbox is art meant to be consumed, in his book The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox, he illustrates how design should incorporate depth, beauty and utility, also explained Japanese design philosophy: more is better. In the lunchbox, beauty, fun and pleasure all work together to produce enjoyment.
Image via Internet
Designing Pleasurable Products by designer Patrick Jordan analysed different types of pleasure:
Physio-pleasure. The pleasure of body, combines visceral level with some of behavioural level.
Socio-pleasure. The pleasure of interaction with others, combines both behavioural level and reflective level.
Psycho-pleasure. The pleasure deals with people’s reaction and state of mind, resides at the behavioural level.
Ideo-pleasure. This pleasure is where one appreciates the aesthetics or quality or other aspects that the product enhances life, lies at the reflective level.
Great design passes the test of time, can be appreciated after continual use and continued presence. How can we maintain excitement for a lifetime? There are two implications:
A. the object must be rich and complex;
B. the viewer must be able to take the time to study, analyse, and consider such rich interplay;
C. the object must have seduction, a process gives rise to a rich and compelling experience that lasts over time.
In order to generate seduction, there are three basic steps could us follow: enticing by diverting attention; building relationship by delivering novelty, goes beyond expectations, creating an instinctive response and exposing values to personal goals; and fulfilling the promises.
Sound/Music can be playful, informative, and emotionally inspiring. It can delight and inform, but could also be annoying if not designed carefully.
Filmmaking also have three emotional levels corresponding to the design levels. The emotional levels for filmmaking are visceral, vicarious and voyeur. While the visceral level is about the exciting action scene and splendid landscape, the vicarious level is aiming to create a flow to keep audience highly concentrated by the movie paced precisely to match their skills. The voyeur’s eye, is the mind’s eye, is the simple joy of seeing the new and the wonderful. This is the level demands explanation, involves cognition, understanding and interpreting.
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