Abstract
Talking about design, most discussions circulate around physical objects or products, around their invention, development, production and marketing. While most modern design approaches do also cover questions pertaining to human interaction, e.g. within user- or human-centred design philosophies, a systematic and fundamental conception of the role and implications that human perception and emo-cognitive processing take with regard to designing physical goods is lacking. Under the umbrella term ‘Psychology of Design’, I will develop and elaborate on psychological dimensions that are highly relevant to the optimization and evaluation of design. I propagate a general psychological turn in design theory and practice in order to purposefully include not only the top-down processes triggered by context, framing, expectation, knowledge or habituation but also the psychological effects of Gestalt and Zeitgeist. Such psychological effects have the potential to determine whether the very same physical design will be aesthetically appreciated, desired, loved or rejected in the end. Psychology of design has a tremendous influence on the success and sustainability of design by triggering associations and displaying demand characteristics in a multimodal way. The paper is based on fundamental psychological theories and empirical evidences which are linked to applied examples from the world of art and design.
Highlights
Before we became consumers, we were humans
As Norman (1995) correctly stated, mostly arises via bad design and not due to malfunctioning cognitive systems. This source of erroneous behaviour is very much based on early principles of Gestalt psychology known as demand characteristics (Koffka 1935) tracing back to Lewin’s (1926) idea of the Aufforderungscharakter 2
We need a conceptual move towards a better understanding of how design shapes predictions. This is very much based on early principles of Gestalt psychology known as demand characteristics (Koffka 1935) tracing back to Lewin’s (1926) idea of the Aufforderungscharakter and later on translated, though not in its full range of qualities, in the theory of affordances by Gibson (1977)
Summary
Still consumers are what they initially were – in the first place, consumers are humans, and people who consume or use products still employ deep-seated evolutionary and culturally shaped programs to assess, access and apply products. This might sound self-evident, 21st century design practice still treats psychology as an interesting add-on but not as the basis of consumers’ needs and requirements (Carbon 2016b). ‘Psychology of Design’ (PoD) provides a psychological basis
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