Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Trevor van Gorp

Trevor van Gorp — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:56:11 GMT

Jamie,
The influence of social dynamics on the flow state is definitely something to consider. As someone who has worked both in teams and as an individual consultant, I know that it’s easier for me to enter flow when I have more of a say in defining the challenges that I undertake.

So, I’d say a higher level of independence and personal responsibility/accountability (whether working on your own or as part of a team) definitely impacts how easy it is to enter the flow state. For example, if you feel that a task you’re currently involved in (or have been assigned to) has little real value, your motivation to complete that task will be lower than if it was either self-assigned or had a more obvious impact.

I would have liked to explore the impact of social dynamics to a greater degree, but wanted to keep this article relatively focused on communicating the main idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

Trevor van Gorp — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:40:02 GMT

Chris,
You make a good point. In fact, its something I’d like to discuss with some users who have sensory impairments. My initial impression is that flow might be somewhat easier to attain for someone with visual impairments, simply because they have less sensory input to demand their attention and distract them from their task. Of course, that’s a very broad generalization, as no two sensory impairments are exactly the same.

As long as relevant feedback is immediately provided (whether it’s visual, auditory, or tactile) the flow of attention remains in place. This understanding would be more important when products & services are designed especially for people with particular sensory impairments. For example, how does a visually impaired person successfully use a touchscreen iPhone without tactile feedback? In these cases, the feedback would need to be tailored to the individual(s) in questions.

Trevor van Gorp — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:34:38 GMT

Andy,
Csikszentmihalyi also differentiates between “pleasure” and “enjoyment”. Auto-telic experiences are those that bring enjoyment rather than merely pleasure. When people stop to consider what the most rewarding times of their life have been, they often remember times when they successfully faced a challenge that required them to meet some expectation or reach some goal. These challenging experiences may or may not have been “pleasurable” and fall under the category Csikszentmihalyi calls “enjoyment”. Of course, as product designers, we would prefer that people using our products experience pleasure, but enjoyment is centered around the challenge of completing a worthwhile task.

The other difference between pleasure and enjoyment is that pleasure can be felt without any effort, through distraction, drugs or alcohol, while enjoyment requires that attention be focused on an activity. I might add that pleasure is also often linked to novelty. Using the touch interface on the iPhone does help to create that sense of pleasure and fun (as most things that involve the kinesthetic sense do) but I don’t see that being enough to ensure the success of a product over repeated usage.

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:44:03 GMT

Johnny,
Demographic would definitely be an important consideration and one worth exploring. I think it falls under “knowing your user group”, which is something that is becoming increasingly important as design overall evolves. Demographics becomes even more of a consideration when discussing attention and attention spans; With media-savy young users and the continuous partial attention we now invest in things, you have less time than ever to attract and retain users’ attention.

Trevor van Gorp — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:45:22 GMT

Erica,
Happy to be of help! I’m glad you found the article useful, and I hope it encourages you to explore the concept of flow as it applies to design (and life in general). ;-)

Trevor van Gorp — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:33:26 GMT

Kristina,
You’re absolutely right. Brilliant user experience strategy and design alone are not enough to ensure a successful project if the content is not up to par. Poor web writing causes users a lot of frustration, which can directly impede flow.

This is an idea that’s clearly illustrated through an analogy like the User Experience Iceberg.
http://www.affectivedesign.org/archives/209

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:00:55 GMT

Thanks for the comments Brett.
I think you’re right in saying that emotions are somewhat “unstable”. For me, the interesting part IS that even though emotions are unstable and ever changing, we can come to see them as stable personality traits when they are expressed consistently over time. And once these traits are established in our minds, we then form (or don’t as the case my be) our relationships based on them.

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:01:00 GMT

Glad you found it interesting Matt. This is a topic that almost everyone understands is incredibly important, but few people have had the time to really explore in depth. However, once you begin to understand the huge role emotions play in basic decision-making, it’s hard to ignore this subject. Be sure to return for Part 2, where I’ll describe a new framework for designing emotional experience that’s based on how people experience different forms of “love”.

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:01:05 GMT

Thanks Art. I haven’t read “Watches Tell More Than Time”, I’ll have to check that out. But I am familiar with the research on semantic differentials through Edie Adams and her work with them at Microsoft.

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:01:10 GMT

Glad you found it useful Whitney. I’m a big believer in systems design, and understanding the system at the “big picture” level in order to make better decisions at the detail level. It’s taken over 6 years and a master’s thesis on this topic to form a working model in my mind that collects and unites the varying disciplinary jargon, while touching on design, emotion, psychology and sociology. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll explore how people experience love in relationships. :)

Trevor van Gorp — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:01:15 GMT

Thanks for the comments Raelin. I appreciate the feedback as making this topic accessible is a big part of what I’m trying to accomplish.

Many of the ideas behind emotional design and brand personality have been very high level and conceptual. But, by adding perspectives from other disciplines such as psychology and sociology, we can begin to identify and utilize the visual and interactive qualities that communicate personality to improve the experiences and relationships our users have with the things we design.

Trevor van Gorp — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:40:02 GMT

Hi Vineet,
You’ll want to read “Emotional Design” by Donald Norman, which is a great introduction to the field. The citations list at the end of this article lists a lot of good books and publications.

You can find out more through the links, articles, interviews and presentations on my blog
http://www.affectivedesign.org

Also, check out the Design & Emotion Society
http://www.designandemotion.org/

and the interviews on Marco van Hout’s blog:
http://www.design-emotion.com/

I hope that helps.
Trevor

Trevor van Gorp — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:01:05 GMT

Glad you’re enjoying the site David. And we’re happy that you’ll keep coming back. ;-)

Trevor van Gorp — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:34:37 GMT

Hi Cliff,
Thanks for the feedback and the suggestions. I’m familiar with the big five, and I believe some work has been done in applying it to design.

In this case, I’m working off of Reeves and Nass’ research which found that the dominant/submissive distinction was one of the more immediate and important distinctions people made when attributing personality.
The dominant/submissive and friendly/unfriendly distinction also matches the notion of the four temperaments that underly many personality models including the Myers-Briggs, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Jungian Temperaments and Hippocrates Four Humours.

And, the goal here is to communicate a basic understanding that is useful to designers who are making decisions about emotion and personality, rather than diving deep into psychology.

Trevor van Gorp — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 06:35:18 GMT

Thanks Frank.
Glad you found it interesting. :-)