Some people think that design is dominated by emotion, after all, most designers are born in art, and they always feel that their work is the best. But what users need is a solution, how to reconcile the conflict between the two? In this article, the author gives his own opinion.
Should design be emotional or rational? Is design emotionally or intellectually important?
There are also those who advocate that "rationality and sensibility need to be balanced" and "both rational and emotional", which seems to be correct, but lacks any substantive guiding value.
In fact, many people don't notice the ambiguity of the problem itself.
What exactly is "design"?
Some think of it as a process of design decision-making, while others think of it as the final design work. Most of the time, the two perspectives of rationality and emotion seem to be in opposition to each other, but they are actually discussed from different levels of design.
01|Design decisions
From the perspective of design decision-making, perceptual design refers to the designer's creative work that primarily relies on personal emotions or emotions in the design process. Many people mistakenly believe that as long as you can empathize with the user, understand their emotional fluctuations, and integrate these joys, sorrows, likes and dislikes into the design work, it is considered emotional design. However, empathy is not the same as emotionality. Empathy is the ability to understand other people's situations and emotions, and to be good at empathy. Sensibility, on the other hand, is one's direct feelings and emotional reactions to external things, emphasizing one's personal perspective.
In the field of art, sensibility reigns supreme, but design is not art. The main goal of design is to solve problems and meet specific needs, while art is more concerned with self-expression and emotional transmission. Design is always constrained by a series of constraints such as customer needs, business objectives, market trends, and technical feasibility. Because of these conditions, the perceptual powers of intuition and talent can only be used in an extremely limited way. This is also a significant difference between design and art.
Standing on the rational side of perceptual "opposite", the design is regarded as an engineering or science, striving to be process-oriented and systematic, paying attention to methodology, paying attention to all aspects of research, and all actions start because of the existence of problems and end with problem solving. Even continue to observe the performance of the work in the actual scene, in order to derive reusable design models or laws, which can help future generations solve similar problems more efficiently.
Therefore, starting from the essential nature of solving problems, rationality should be the background color of design. Data-driven, methodological support, usability testing, competitive product analysis, user research, etc. are all concrete manifestations of rational thinking.
Since most designers are based on art, once the boundary between design and art becomes blurred in their minds, they will habitually regard the product as their own "work" rather than the user's "solution". In this way, when faced with boundaries and uncertainties from all directions, the instinctive reaction is not to think, but to resist, especially the "perfect" plan has been formed in the mind, if the sudden new requirements disrupt all this, even in the name of the user, we must choose to go back, and continue to beautify and rationalize their own design concepts. For designers, this is a sign of selfishness, irresponsibility, and lack of professionalism.
Next, imagine you have a gun in your hand and are ready to shoot at a certain target. What was your first move? Most likely it is aiming. Because we all know that before shooting, through the scope or crosshair, the target position is first corrected, and the hit rate can be improved when shooting, which is why rationality is important to design.
The role of rationality in design is similar to aiming action, which helps us make scientific decisions in the design process and ensures the accuracy and executability of the design plan. Design without rational thinking is like shooting without aiming, and the results are often unpredictable. Of course, it is also possible to hit the target, which basically depends on two factors:
- Targets are far and near: Targets at close range are easy to hit even if they are not aimed; But for distant targets, the hit rate is bound to drop dramatically. We can understand the distance of the goal as the difficulty of the design requirements, for simple requirements, without too much rational analysis, direct design can also complete the task, but in the face of complex design projects, if you do not carry out sufficient rational analysis to start drawing, there is a high probability of deviating from the product goal.
- Personal experience: After repeated practice, you can practice the ability to shoot from a distance without aiming, and with the accumulation of experience, you can continue to improve the distance value; In the case of inexperience, if you don't aim yet, you can only choose some close-range shooting targets. The same is true for design, for a certain type of product design experience, without too much rational analysis and decision-making, the design goal can be achieved; If you are inexperienced and sloppy with your instincts, even the simplest projects can be messed up.
Therefore, a fatal problem of design that does not have the support of reason and relies entirely on intuitive experience is instability! In daily work, effective and stable output of designers is crucial.
02|Design expression
Assuming that all aimed shots hit the target smoothly, what is the next thing to focus on? The impact and lethality of a bullet! The bullet here is our final output. In this link, rational design refers to the fact that the scheme is presented entirely around the product function, pursues efficiency and minimalist cognition, and rarely uses decorative design elements, and even if it is used, most of them have the functional purpose of assisting content understanding.
As for perceptual design, I am reluctant to use the term "sensibility", as defined in the previous paragraph, sensibility emphasizes the expression of emotions from the individual's departure. In fact, "emotional design" is more responsible for the meaning that everyone often says "perceptual design", compared with "rational" design works, emotional design has the effect of "killing with one hit". On the basis of satisfying the basic functional requirements, users can be given a full emotional experience through elements such as color, typography, images, and animations, and strategies such as narrative, dialogue, scenes, and micro-interactions can also be used to arouse resonance. A variety of emotional design strategies make it easier for users to establish an emotional connection with the product.
In the stage of design decision-making, rationality ensures that we have a higher probability of hitting, and the injection of emotion makes our design expression deeply penetrating and influential. Typical design cases, such as Apple, Tesla, and other product designs, are all a full combination of rational decision-making and emotional expression. So, back to the question raised at the beginning, should design be emotional or rational? My answer is:
As a designer, you must adhere to rational design decisions and pursue emotional design expression at the same time.
03|The relationship between the two
Many people believe that different design fields have different requirements for rationality and sensibility, and in B-end products, rationality dominates, while C-end products emphasize more sensibility. This view is justified to a certain extent in terms of what the design will ultimately look like. B-end products are mostly used in production scenarios, and the pursuit is usability, restraint and efficiency; C-end products are oriented to various life scenarios of the general public, so they pay attention to the pleasant feeling of experience. The two tend to differ greatly in style and tonality.
However, for design decisions, whether it is the C-end, B-end or G-side, it is a design project, and it is necessary to carry out rational demand analysis and strategy formulation, even if some product types finally choose a partial emotional or emotional expression, it is also a choice based on rational decision-making, and it is a means to achieve the goal. So what I want to say is that rationality and sensibility are neither opposites nor juxtapositions, but sequential or nested relationships: rationality is the basis and first step of design, and sensibility is the selection and development of rationality.
Final words
As a designer, the question of rationality and sensibility in design should not stay in the simple cognition of either/or or both wants, and any in-depth thinking is meaningful. On this divisive issue, I hope that my point of view can provide you with a little inspiration, and I also hope that designers can not only formulate effective design strategies through rational analysis, but also create moving design works through emotional expression, and constantly improve their own design value, and achieve a win-win situation with products.
This article was originally published by @设计来电 on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
The title image is from Unsplash and is licensed under CC0
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