Design for How People Think

Chapter 7 Emotion: Logical Decision Making Meets Its Match

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Emotion: Logical Decision Making Meets Its Match

Up until now, we’ve treated everyone like they are perfectly rational and make sound decisions every time. While I’m sure that applies in your case (not!), most of us systematically deviate from logic, and often use mental shortcuts. When overwhelmed, we default to heuristics and end up “satisficing”—picking an option that is easy to recall and seems about right, rather than using careful decision making.

As product designers, I want you to think about all the emotions that are critical to product and service design (see Figure 7-1). This does mean considering the emotions and emotional qualities that are evoked as a customer experiences our products and services. But it also means going deeper, to the customer’s underlying and deep-seated goals and desires (which I hope you will help them accomplish with your product or service), as well as the customer’s biggest fears (which you may need to design around should they play a role in decision making).

Too Much Information Jamming Up My Brain! Too Much Information Driving Me Insane!

I mentioned Daniel Kahneman earlier in reference to his work on attention and mental effort in Thinking, Fast and Slow; he shows how, for example, in a quiet room, by yourself, you can usually make quite logical decisions. If, however, ...