02-06 · Week 2
Emotion, motivation and affective computing
Maslow hierarchy as shown in Lecture 2, the three levels of emotional design, affective computing and the motivation questions from Worksheet W3.
- Recall the three bands of the Maslow hierarchy on the slide.
- Distinguish visceral, behavioural and reflective design.
- Define affective computing and name an example application.
- Compare extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for a nudging design.
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Emotion and motivation explain why people use a product at all
Intuition
People queued overnight for a limited-edition watch. No usability metric explains that. Emotion and motivation do, which is why Lecture 2 ends its human capabilities tour with them.
The motivation section opens with the question of how to get people to do things they do not like to do, and presents the Maslow hierarchical theory in three bands: basic needs, psychological needs and self-fulfilment needs. The Maslow figure itself is only a picture, so the exact layering of the needs inside each band is not recorded here.
Emotional design works on three levels
Lecture 2 uses the Ortony et al. (2005) model.
Compare
Levels
Visceral
Behavioural
Reflective
What each is about
Making products look, feel and sound good.
Use. Equates to the traditional values of usability.
The meaning and personal value of a product.
Pitfall
Behavioural design is usability, not feelings about looks. Looks, feel and sound are visceral. Meaning and personal value, as in the MoonSwatch queue discussion, are reflective.
Affective computing asks whether machines can recognise emotion
The lecture asks “How do we express emotions when we are online?” and “Can we teach computers to recognise emotions?”. Affective computing is the area that tries to do the second. The examples are facial recognition of emotion and the Galvactivator, a glove that glows when you are excited by measuring changes in skin conductance. Worksheet W3 asks you to explain affective computing and name applications that would benefit.
Optional aside
The lecture also raises food-for-thought questions: are you making your own decisions if you follow recommender system suggestions, and can machines have feelings? These are discussion prompts and carry no stated answer. Extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation appears only in Worksheet W3, with no definition on the slides, so the definitions used on this page are the standard ones.
Recall
Give the three levels of emotional design and the usability link.
Visceral, behavioural, reflective. Behavioural design equates with the traditional values of usability.
Check yourself
Source
Lecture 2 PDF