Emotional Design Course

Lesson 1 • How Emotions Influence Decisions

Covers the psychological mechanisms by which emotions shape perception and choice. Connects neuroscience basics to practical design implications.

Lesson 2 • Norman's Three Levels of Design

Introduces visceral, behavioral, and reflective processing as a core analytical lens. Students apply the model to real products to build interpretive fluency.

Lesson 3 • Defining Emotional Design

Clarifies what emotional design means beyond aesthetics and why it matters commercially. Anchors the chapter by distinguishing emotional from purely functional design goals.

Lesson 1 • Valence, Arousal, and Dominance

Explains the circumplex model and PAD dimensions as practical mapping tools. Students learn to plot target emotional states for design briefs.

Lesson 2 • Negative Emotions as Design Levers

Reframes anxiety, frustration, and tension as intentional design tools when used ethically. Balances the chapter's positive-emotion focus with a nuanced view.

Lesson 3 • Core Emotion Theories for Designers

Contrasts basic emotion theory, appraisal theory, and constructionist views. Equips students to choose the right theoretical lens for a given design problem.

Lesson 4 • Emotional Contagion and Social Emotion

Covers how emotions spread through social cues, interfaces, and communities. Connects social emotion theory to community and social product design.

Lesson 1 • Composition and Visual Hierarchy

Teaches how layout, whitespace, and focal points guide emotional attention and pacing. Integrates all visual elements into a unified emotional composition.

Lesson 2 • Imagery and Emotional Narrative

Covers photographic style, illustration, and iconography as emotional storytelling tools. Students evaluate and select imagery that reinforces intended emotional arcs.

Lesson 3 • Shape, Form, and Emotional Meaning

Analyzes how geometric and organic forms trigger visceral emotional responses. Connects form language to brand personality and product character.

Lesson 4 • Typography and Emotional Tone

Examines how typeface selection, weight, and spacing communicate personality and mood. Students match typographic choices to emotional design goals.

Lesson 1 • Microinteractions and Emotional Feedback

Examines how small animations, sounds, and haptics create moments of delight or reassurance. Students design microinteractions that reinforce emotional intent.

Lesson 2 • Onboarding and First Emotional Impressions

Focuses on the critical first-use experience and its outsized impact on emotional bonding. Students design onboarding sequences that build trust and excitement quickly.

Lesson 3 • Error States and Emotional Recovery

Reframes error design as an opportunity to strengthen emotional resilience and trust. Students write and design error messages that reduce frustration and restore confidence.

Lesson 4 • Flow State and Engagement Design

Applies Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory to interaction design to sustain deep engagement. Students calibrate challenge and skill balance in interactive systems.

Lesson 1 • Self-Report Instruments in Depth

Examines validated scales such as SAM, PrEmo, and Likert-based tools for capturing subjective emotion. Students administer and score instruments in practice sessions.

Lesson 2 • Synthesizing and Reporting Findings

Guides students in translating mixed emotional data into actionable design recommendations. Students produce a research report that links findings to specific design changes.

Lesson 3 • Planning Emotional Research Studies

Covers research question framing, participant recruitment, and ethical considerations specific to emotion research. Students draft a complete emotional research plan.

Lesson 4 • Physiological and Biometric Methods

Introduces skin conductance, heart rate, facial action coding, and eye tracking as objective emotion measures. Students interpret biometric data in design contexts.

Lesson 1 • Storytelling Structures for Designers

Introduces narrative arcs, hero's journey, and tension-resolution patterns as design frameworks. Students map these structures onto product and brand experiences.

Lesson 2 • Tone of Voice and Emotional Copy

Covers how word choice, sentence rhythm, and voice persona shape emotional response in text. Students write copy variants targeting distinct emotional states.

Lesson 3 • Emotional Storytelling Across Channels

Examines how emotional narratives must adapt across digital, physical, and social channels. Students create a cross-channel emotional content plan.

Lesson 4 • Nostalgia, Aspiration, and Emotional Anchors

Explores nostalgia and aspirational emotion as powerful long-term brand bonding mechanisms. Students identify and design emotional anchors for sustained loyalty.

Lesson 1 • Persuasion vs. Manipulation in Design

Draws a principled line between ethical persuasion and exploitative emotional manipulation. Students analyze case studies to classify design patterns on an ethics spectrum.

Lesson 2 • Organizational Ethics and Design Culture

Explores how team culture, leadership, and process shape ethical emotional design outcomes. Students propose structural changes to embed ethics in design workflows.

Lesson 3 • Transparency and Informed Consent

Examines how transparency about emotional design intent affects user trust and autonomy. Students draft disclosure practices for emotionally engineered products.

Lesson 4 • Vulnerable Users and Emotional Risk

Addresses heightened ethical responsibility when designing for emotionally vulnerable populations. Students apply risk assessment to identify and mitigate potential emotional harm.

Lesson 1 • Scaling Emotional Design Across Teams

Addresses how to embed emotional design principles into design systems, guidelines, and team workflows at scale. Students create an emotional design playbook for a team.

Lesson 2 • Capstone Strategy Presentation

Students synthesize all course learning into a full emotional design strategy and present it for expert critique. Feedback drives final refinement of the strategy document.

Lesson 3 • Emotional Design Systems Thinking

Applies systems thinking to map emotional design decisions across an entire product ecosystem. Students identify leverage points where emotional interventions have the greatest impact.

Lesson 4 • Measuring Emotional Design ROI

Connects emotional design outcomes to business metrics such as retention, NPS, and conversion. Students build a measurement framework linking emotional KPIs to business goals.