Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love v1

100% booked
Intermediate
Closed for enrollment

How This Course Will Help Your Career

What separates great products from good ones? Attractive designs? User testing? Genius designers? Well, these might be contributory factors, but the true distinction lies in how they make users feel. Every experience has an emotional component, and using products is no different. Incorporating emotion should therefore be a key consideration when designing products or websites. This course will provide you with an understanding of emotional responses and how to create designs that encourage them.

An understanding of emotional design—how users feel and what affects these feelings—is essential if you want to provide great user experiences. There are probably things near you right now that are not necessarily the best, and they might not even be particularly attractive, but you are nonetheless still using them. Take a seashell from your favorite beach, or your very first tennis racket, for example; they are meaningful to you, and you consequently feel a connection to them. These connections are powerful; they subconsciously affect you and have the capacity to turn inanimate objects into evocative extensions of you as an individual.

In this course, we will provide you with the information necessary to elicit such positive emotional experiences through your designs. Human-computer interaction (HCI) specialist Alan Dix provides video content for each of the lessons, helping to crystallize the information covered throughout the course. By the end of it, you will have a better understanding of the relationship between people and the things they use in their everyday lives and, more importantly, how to design new products and websites which elicit certain emotional responses.

What you will learn

  • How to establish a relationship between emotion and design
  • Examples of emotional responses in design and the human factors that affect them
  • Designing for positive emotional experiences
  • Examples of emotional responses in design
  • The difference between visceral, behavioral and reflective design, and how to encourage positive visceral, behavioral and reflective processing
  • The concept and application of the “Triune Brain”

Who should take this course

This is an intermediate-level course recommended for anyone involved in the design process of a product or website:

  • UX, UI, and web designers keen on designing products that elicit the right emotional response from users, and thus keep them engaged
  • Project managers interested in making their products cater to the users’ emotions
  • Software engineers looking to understand how to target users’ emotional responses more effectively
  • Entrepreneurs who want to ship products that users are engaged with and respond positively towards
  • Marketers interested in creating the right emotional response in customers across all touch-points
  • Newcomers to design who are considering making a switch to UX, UI, or web design

Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. All participants will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and work with a global team of designers

When you take part in this course, you will join a global multidisciplinary team working on the course and the exercises at the same time as you. You will work together to improve your skills and understanding. Your course group will be made up of an incredibly diverse group of professionals, all of whom have the same objective—to become successful designers. It’s your chance to learn, grow, and network with your peers across the planet.

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or your website.

Course Certificate example

Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Our clients: IBM, HP, Adobe, GE, Accenture, Allianz, Phillips, Deezer, Capgemin, Mcafee, SAP, Telenor, Cigna, British Parliment, State of New York

Lessons in This Course

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • There’s no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines.
  • Estimated learning time: 32 hours 17 mins spread over 7 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour 40 mins.

Lesson 1: What do we mean by 'Emotion'? An Introduction to Emotional Design

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 33 mins.

Lesson 2: How products affect us: Emotional Responses, Connections and Associations

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours 51 mins.

Lesson 3: Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective Design - Don Norman's Three Levels of Design

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 35 mins.

Lesson 4: Affect and Design: Designing positive emotional experiences

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours 58 mins.

Lesson 5: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Helping users 'self-actualise'

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 6 hours 36 mins.

Lesson 6: The Triune Brain: Sorry, you have to please three not just one brain

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 35 mins.

Lesson 7: Emotional Design: Applying the Knowledge

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours 30 mins.

Lesson 8: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

To be scheduled.

How Others Have Benefited

Herve David

Herve David, Switzerland

“Hi thanks a lot for this great lesson I learnt a lot, I loved the concept of triune brain and his impact on the decision making process.”


Marlene P. Naicker

Marlene P. Naicker, Netherlands

“The lessons are very thought provoking. Simple but complex - when you break them down.”


Emma Lundgren

Emma Lundgren, Australia

“I really liked this lesson. It makes it more obvious that we as designers have a far wider responsibility than just just designing the interactions. The experience of a product start way before a customer uses it, and continues on for much longer after it has been put down. Cool!”

How It Works

  1. Control your learning.

    Lessons are self-paced so you’ll never be late for class or miss a deadline. Learning and life, hand in hand.

  2. Earn Course Certificates.

    Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to show you’ve put in the work.

  3. Advance your career.

    Grow your professional knowledge by watching Master Classes, networking within our UX community, and more.

Start Advancing Your Career Now

Join us to take “Emotional Design — How to Make Products People Will Love v1”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

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