Design matters. A lot. The Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago is determined to show the world how and how much. At two recent conferences it has hosted, one in May and one last October, the power of design and thinking in a designer-ly way were thoroughly discussed and demonstrated. As Patrick Whitney, the dean of IIT’s Institute of Design describes, understanding design “in both a deeper and broader way … can create value for both culture and commerce over the long run.” And design isn’t just an esoteric pursuit; it encompasses all ... Read More
Baby Faces, Product Design and Evolutionary Theory
October 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Linda Miesler and Helmut Leder decided to put evolutionary theory to the test in the product design world. At the 7th International Design and Emotion Conference in Chicago, Miesler, a doctoral student, presented the lessons that she and Leder, a psychology professor, learned about baby faces and responses to designed objects. There's a body of research indicating that humans think human baby faces are cute and respond positively to them — this is where the evolutionary theory comes in. It's good for us to respond positively to our young. Baby faces share certain attributes — relatively ... Read More
Store’s Lighting Influences Perceptions of Quality
October 18, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Light is important to us both biologically and psychologically. Indoors, it is also relatively easy to change. At the recent 7th International Design and Emotion Conference in Chicago, Katelijn Quartier — a lecturer and doctoral student in the department of architecture at PHL University in Belgium and a consultant with Retailology — discussed ways stores can use light to influence and brand shopper experience. Quartier and her colleagues visited three grocery stores in Belgium — one high end, one a discounter and the third a deep discounter. At each, they took readings of the color ... Read More
Hotel Guests Become Pawns in LED Lighting Design
October 15, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Philips Electronics is stuffed with clever researchers, designers, engineers and marketers. Their efforts have resulted in an impressive array of lighting, health care, personal care, audio-visual and other products. In the presentation "Beyond the Switch" at the 7th International Design and Emotion Conference last week, Jon Mason and Dirk Engelen from the Philips office in the Netherlands shared some of their recent work on hotel lighting and light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. The task before the Philips team was to develop a way for guests to control the LEDs being used to light their hotel ... Read More
Choosing a Mate, Selecting a Chair
October 14, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Selecting a life partner is a lot like choosing a chair, says Ayca Cakmakli. Speaking at the 7th International Design and Emotion Conference, Cakmakli, who has a master's in industrial design from the Pratt Institute and is a design researcher at Smart Design in New York, explained why: desirable products and people we are attracted to are similar in lots of ways. Psychologists have been investigating how we identify a good mate for years. The criteria used to make our decisions, as Cakmakli describes, are frighteningly similar to those reviewed to select products we want to bring home. ... Read More
Different Cultures, Different Robots
October 13, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Cultures have their own songs, holidays, special foods ... and robots. Selma Sabanovic, an associate professor of informatics at Indiana University, described why last week during a talk on "Emotion in Robot Cultures" at the 7th International Conference on Design and Emotion in Chicago. People building social robots in the West and in Japan are interested in ending up with two very different types of machines, she explained. Western robots are engineered to more explicitly express emotion, while those from Japan are generally as expressive as the masks worn by actors in traditional ... Read More
