Assignment 1 – Pleasure with Products

The aim of this assignment is to identify three products that are representative of visceral, behavioral and reflective design. They are defined as follows,

Visceral design: refers primarily to that initial impact, to the product’s appearance.

Behavioral design: is about look and feel, the total experience of using a product. The physical feel/pleasure and effectiveness of use.

Reflective design: is about the afterthoughts from use. Hw it makes one feel, the image it portrays and the message it tells others about the owner’s taste.

For this assignment, I will be using cameras for my anaylsis. Yes, the after-effects of NM3223 is felt still… (:

Visceral

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC- T2 Camera             Gallery

Introduction:
The Casio ex-slim series and Sony point-and-shoot cameras best exemplify visceral design. Such cameras are extremely slim, often marketed as being able to fit into your jeans pocket. The recent assortment of eye catching colors only serve to make them even more attractive to the consumers.

Behavioral: Reasonable performance. Suitable for normal, basic photography needs.

Reflective: While the slimmest models get their fair share of Oooos & aaahhhss from envious friends. These cameras are still largely comfortably affordable. Fair amount of “show off value”

Visceral: Colourful and slim with much thoughts put into the design. No protruding parts. Extremely sleek.

Behavioral

Canon EOS 5D DSLR camera          Gallery

Introduction:
The DSLR camera. Such cameras are often associated with semi-pro or professional photography. Users of DSLR cameras would fall under the “more informed” category as such cameras offer more control over the image capture process.

Behavioral: Workhorse. Full manual controls enables excellent images to be taken. Gets the job done.
Reflective: Professional. Seen as a serious tool. More expensive than point and shoot. Full of various functions.

Visceral: Bulky. Definitely NOT suitable for jeans pockets. Similar designs, aesthetically boring.

Reflective

Leica M8… Trust me, it’s very expensive.          Gallery

Introduction:
Leica. The company often associated with excellent optics (read: exorbitantly priced). So what? Even if there’s problems with the image quality. So what? Even if it produces bad vignetting in photgrahs?
It’s still a Leica!

Behavioral: Questionable performance. But definite good quality optics.

Reflective: Status symbol. Simply because it is expensive.

Visceral: Photography icon. Brand itself has attractiveness.

While it might seem that in the case of cameras, an increase in the price seemingly makes its design more reflective, the following example suggests otherwise.

Reflective 2

The LOMO Action Sampler 35mm film camera.          Gallery

Introduction:
Toy cameras, under the ingenious marketing of the Lomographic Society has seen bad photographs passing off as art. The low fidelity, colour and saturation skewed images commands a fanatic following all around the world.

There are numerous online forums and communities devoted to toy cameras and Lomographic photography. People buy these cameras to be part of the cult following of Lomographic photography.

Behavioral: Bad performance. Light leaks, flimsy plastic construction. Images produced are have bad fidelity and color reproduction.

Reflective: Cult symbol. Commands a strong following globally. The uncertainty of how the images will turn out fuels the artistic notion attached to Lomography.

Visceral: Cheap plastic construction. Apparent image of a toy.