Design principles for improving emotional affordances in an online learning environment

Abstract

This study aims to develop and validate essential design principles for improving emotional affordances in an online learning environment by investigating theoretical and practical mechanisms of integrating emotions into the instructional design and technology. To achieve this goal, we applied design and development research methodology in accordance with the procedure of development by reviewing relevant extant literature and then performing validation through a three-round expert review and usability evaluation. For the first stage of development, ten design principles were derived after synthesizing and elaborating related variables through a literature review. For the next stage of validation, eight experts were asked to review these principles, and three instructional designers participated in testing the usability. The findings suggest that online learning environments should reflect the eight design principles of positivity, playfulness, humanity, self-disclosure, safety, personalization, affinity, and intimacy for enhancing visceral, behavioral, and reflective emotional affordances with regard to learning activities, learning support, learner interface (LI)/learner eXperience (LX), and learning screen. We discuss the results and practical implications of the findings for future research.