Designed Pleasure

Patrick Jordan, in a short but incredibly important book (Designing Pleasurable Products – An Introduction to the New Human Factors, 2000, Taylor and Francis), lays out how design can make our lives better.  His findings are relevant whether you’re building a homestead or re-designing a teapot.  It can provide:

• Physio-pleasure “has to do with the body and with pleasures derived from the sensory organs. . . .
• Socio-pleasure . . . is the enjoyment derived from relationships with others.  This might mean relationships with friends and loved ones, with colleagues or with like-minded people.  However, it might also include a person’s relationship with society as a whole—issues such as status and image may play a role here.  Products can facilitate social interaction in a number of ways.  For example, a coffee-maker provides a service that can act as a focal point for a little social gatherings. . . . Other products may facilitate social interaction by being talking points in themselves. . . .
• Psycho-pleasure pertains to people’s cognitive and emotional reactions.  In the case of products, this might include issues relating to the cognitive demands of using the product and the emotional reactions engendered through experiencing the product. . . .
• Ideo-pleasure pertains to people’s values. . . . In the context of products it would relate to, for example, the aesthetics of a product and the values that a product embodies.”

Jordan states that “there is no suggestion that all products should provide all four types of pleasure.  It might be that the benefits associated with a particular product cover the entire range of different types of pleasure, or that a product is experienced as pleasurable in one particular way.”