How Design Makes Us Think: And Feel and Do Things

by Sean Adams

It may—or may not be—the goal of the designer to manipulate the viewer’s reaction. Nevertheless, every element in successful design works together to tell us how to think and, typically, what to do.

One designer told me that he advises clients that 80 percent of the solution will be based on research, logic, and rational thinking. The remaining 20 percent is intuition. He could not, and would not, attempt to justify this part of a solution.

The culmination of our experiences and references determine our connection, or lack thereof, to a communication.

By deconstructing the elements, we can see how the message is manipulated:

Recognizing the genesis and the intended audience is critical to the practice of deconstructing any form of design.

To be heard, understood, and remembered, the designer must engage the audience first to attract attention. He or she must then engage the viewer to spend time with the communication or engage with the object. A design must walk the fine line of being easy to use or understand and complex enough to require more attention. And finally, the audience, viewer, or user needs to leave the experience with a positive feeling about the product or design.

Visceral design, tied to appearance, is the most deep-seated biological response. To survive as a species, we needed to make quick judgments based on appearances. Bright fruits and a clear blue sky are healthy. Rotting meat and menacing clouds may be unhealthy.

Behavioral design addresses emotions such as pleasure or disgust based on our experience. A perfectly round wheel will function better than an elliptical one. Subsequently, we prefer the round shape for the wheel, finding it easier to use.

Reflective design also requires more complex thinking: it involves self-image, personal satisfaction, and associations. It is a determining factor in many brands. A consumer purchases a coffee at Starbucks based on his or her satisfaction with the product, positive previous experiences, and self-identity connected with the status of carrying a Starbucks cup.{7}

The primary colors are natural to recognize and typically connected to “good” things in our experience: fruit, flowers, and water.

Like Brussels sprouts, complex colors are an acquired taste, as in the example of a beautiful William Morris textile design.

The graphic designer Paul Rand said, “A good logo cannot make a bad product good. Nevertheless, a good logo can make a good product great.” This translates to another metaphor: “Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it not a pig.”

The interface is the design element that seduces the user with the message of straightforward operation.

The iPhone is also a perfect example of the third aspect of beauty and seduction, our self-image.

Value is a component of seduction that connects to how we identify ourselves and connect to the external world. Our environment and culture determine value.

Designers integrate color, form, imagery, material, and context to entice the viewer into the initial communication. The style captivates the viewer. Now the content makes a command.

When the effort outweighs the result, we reject the object, and it fails.

When a product or communication works well and efficiently, we enjoy the engagement.

In the 1920s, designers and architects at the Bauhaus placed a premium on function. Based on the mistrust of the aristocracy and devastation of World War I, these designers rejected ornamentation and unnecessary decoration as symbols of corruption.

Walter Gropius designed the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1925 as a “machine for learning.”

One of design’s most complex tasks is to create order from chaos. A cohesive and memorable graphic system will create brand visibility and communicate confidence and efficiency.

Any design solution, regardless of the quality that requires an excess of toxic materials, is no longer efficient.

Function in design may seem to address only the practical needs of the user or viewer. However, usability, performance, effectiveness, and sustainability create a positive emotion. When a design solution succeeds, the viewer feels connected and confident. An efficient solution builds trust, and therefore engenders repeated actions.

It is the emotional connection, the memory, and pride at the success of the mission that creates communication.

As consumers of products and information, we recognize efficiency with visual cues: sans serif typography reads as clinical and precise.{52} As physical beings, weight, and surface matter to us. Lightweight and portable imply ease of use and functionality.{53}Black and white convey the idea of minimal resources and maximum efficiency.{54}

The best solutions combined reliability and functionality with a visual approach that is true to the product or object’s purpose. Today, the promise of efficiency must pair with sustainable practices. No design solution is successful if it ends life in a garbage dump. But, a graceful and refined design that encourages ongoing usefulness is an extraordinary success.

“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested, and the frog dies of it.”

People enjoy solving problems. It is inherent. We solve a problem and receive a rush of chemicals in our brain that produces a pleasant sensation.

When a designer faces the task of communicating a complex, socially controversial, or unpopular message, he or she uses humor as a gateway into the message.

Laughter can exist, like art, for its own sake.

Similarly, well-placed humor elevates a mundane process to the memorable.

The ability to suspend disbelief and accept the ridiculous is part of the process in comedy. Taken literally, or without humor, the ridiculous often simply seems stupid.

Humor disarms and then speaks to the viewer and forms a personal, positive, and emotional connection.

We now expect friendly simplicity from the intelligent products that we operate.

Lack of ornamentation and focus on function are cues that a product is efficient.

The reflective level is about conscious thought, not a biological or behavioral reaction. It is based on cultural learning, individual experience, belief systems, and values.

A common misperception is that design is Darwinian in the sense that it is improves over time. Design is indeed Darwinian, but in terms of actual evolution, it is a product of its time and place. What we value today aesthetically and culturally is a product of our history and experience.

The evolution from ornamentation to pure function is not simple. Like all design approaches, one solution shifts the norm slightly, then another, and finally, the majority respects simplicity and function over ornament.

Regardless of the style du jour, we viscerally respond to beautiful forms, but we make a conscious judgment on the reflective level.

Human beings are good at creating order from chaos visually. We naturally arrange elements into groups. We look for consistencies and inconsistencies in form. When a designer works with a consistent proportion, we may not consciously recognize it.

Scarcity and uniqueness add value economically and aesthetically.

Like elegance, pride relates to our culture and societal values.

Modern advertising often suggests that the consumer is not beautiful, successful, attractive, or popular but will become these things by using the product advertised.

Good designers are exceptionally aware of the messages they create. And they are typically committed to the greater good rather than selling harmful products or promoting destructive ideas to appease our own or others’ pride.

we still carry the evolutionary fear of social rejection.

The 1970s introduced the high-tech industrial style to residential design. The style celebrated innovation and honesty with exposed pipes, restaurant equipment, and functional commercial furniture.

The tables illustrate the ways that culture affects design. New forms followed as urban living changed to suburban life, and people evolved their social habits.

Innovation is not always a polite and gentle path of step-by-step invention.

as one of the first woman art directors of a major

The idea of communicating an identity with only inanimate objects is an ingenious concept.