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In Defense of Eye Candy

By Stephen P. Anderson

Recent studies into emotions are finding that we can’t actually separate cognition from affect. Separate studies in economics and in neuroscience are proving that:

“affect, which is inexplicably linked to attitudes, expectations and motivations, plays a significant role in the cognition of product interaction…the perception that affect and cognition are independent, separate information processing systems is flawed.” [2]

In other words, how we “think” cannot be separated from how we “feel.”

This raises some interesting questions—especially in the area of decision making. In short, our rational choices aren’t so rational. From studies on choice to first impressions, neuroscience is exploring how the brain works—and it’s kind of scary. We’re not nearly as in charge of our decisions as we’d like to believe.

Consider what you’re doing with your interfaces to speak to people’s emotions? Industrial product design, automobile manufacturing and other more mature industries get this—with tools such as Kano modeling that have been used for decades. But user interface development is still maturing and catching up to what these other disciplines already know: the most direct way to influence a decision or perception is through the emotions.

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