Emotion: A Vital Component in Design Decision Making

Abstract

According to several authors, emotions are vital in decision-making, existing three fundamental components in the emotional set, that is, the affective, the cognitive and the motor, which gives emotions a central role in design projects, along with intuition, directly relating the design product with its user, which may lead to the adoption of new attitudes. Since emotions are processed at memory level, they can enable the generation of new meanings established by each user, motivating feelings of belonging, in addition to promoting greater durability in the relationship established between user/object, which may lead to positive attitudes at the level of product life cycle. Over the last few decades, there has been a paradigm shift in terms of design processes and methods, which has brought with it greater flexibility in the incorporation of concepts, promoting interaction and empathy with human beings, valuing a more cognitive and humanistic design approach. In this paper we present an investigation that fits into the disciplinary territory of Design, in which we intend to give emotion a central role in design decision-making. It uses a mixed methodology centred on literature review and practical experience in teaching design project. It is intended to stimulate reflection and bring new perspectives on the addressed object of study that may lead to a position taking the emotional component as a fundamental advantage key strategy in design decision making, contributing to a more sustained vision of the professionals but also the students, in the development of projects in design.