Media: Emotional Designer Norman is interviewed in Scientific American

Scientific American talks to Don Norman about emotion, robots and the things that are currently exciting him. "Why Machines Should Fear" by W Wayt Gibbs starts delightfully: 'Once a curmudgeonly champion of "usable" design, cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman argues that future machines will need emotions to be truly dependable.'

'Norman concludes that "emotion, or 'affect,' is an information processing system, similar to but distinct from cognition. With cognition we understand and interpret the world - which takes time," he says. "Emotion works much more quickly, and its role is to make judgments - this is good, that is bad, this is safe." ...

So if only for purely utilitarian reasons, devices and software should be designed to influence the mood of the user; they will be more effective because they are more affective.'

Associated Link: Scientific American: Why Machines Should Fear

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