Emotional Design: Exploring Principles of Positive Sensory Stimulation in Product Design
Emotional design investigates the principles and application of positive sensory stimulation to create a positive user experience in product design. Through meaning-making, it examines how and why emotional connections with products are formed and how design can foster long-lasting emotional attachment. The goal of this research direction is to extend the product lifecycle and conserve resources.
Ongoing projects:
Application of Participatory Methods for Exploring Meaning-Making Process in Bag Design
The research is for investigates which meaning-making methods and principles can be intentionally applied within the design process to extend a product’s useful lifespan. The owner’s emotional attachment to a personal item has the potential to prolong its active use, reduce the demand for substitute products, and lower the need to acquire new items. As a participatory research through design, this project focuses on testing co-creation techniques and experience-driven methods, allowing bag users to influence the design and production process based on their experiences and memories through various workshops. The objective of the research is to identify connections between the meanings that arise in users’ perceptions of a product and the distinctive features of that product, with the aim of applying these insights in bag design.
Research Lead: Jaana Päeva
Team Members: Merle Visak
Duration: 01.01.2025–31.12.2026
Funding: EKA
ETIS: link
Completed Projects:
Experience-driven practice-based research on handbag design principles
This project studies the connections between sensory perceptions preserved in memories and product descriptions to understand how products are perceived and experienced, which experiences become long-lasting memories, what emotions drive remembrance, and how memories influence emotional attachment to products. The aim is to integrate new knowledge into the design process to extend the potential lifespan of products.
The focus is on handbags, as they are everyday items with significant roles in their owners’ lives. A handbag’s exterior is public, reflecting the carrier’s cultural and social values, attitudes, different roles, and daily needs, while its interior is hidden, personal, and private. The functional and symbolic value of handbags, along with their ambivalence and importance in the owner’s everyday activities, provides a suitable context for collecting memories and incorporating them as input for bag design.
The project includes collecting handbag-related memories, creating a collection of bags based on the collected data, gathering feedback on the prototypes, and analyzing the results.
Research Lead: Jaana Päeva
Research Team Members: Kadri Kruus, Maris Rosenthal
Duration: 01.08.2023–31.12.2024
Funding: Estonian Ministry of Culture
ETIS: link