Design for Everyone?

Norman, in his book "Emotional Design", writes of the three levels of design and how they are connected to our emotions. While reading his work I reflected on objects in my life that connect to me emotionally. I immediately started to think of my life long passion of sailing.

I have been sailing since I was the age of five. Through time I have acquired a great love for sailboats. They appeal to me at all three levels of design that Norman speaks of. Firstly, at the visceral level,  sailboats are objects of beauty. The curve of the haul of the boat, the different shapes of the sails each with its unique beauty. At a behavioural level, you can evaluate sailboats as to their functionality. The location of the wenches, the ease of raising the sails, the organization of the rigging, the functionality of the cabin.  Finally the reflective appeal of sailboats. I associate sailing with adventure, and spending time with my father. There is an overwhelming sense of positive feelings associated with sailing which connects with me at a deep emotional level.

This particular activity with its gear is very appealing to me but not necessarily to everyone. Norman  acknowledges the difficulty of appealing the design of a service or a product to everyone. He writes about the fact that within a service, such as shopping for clothes, there is a variety of different approaches to meeting the needs of the consumer. Using a comparison of the organization of clothing stores, the Gap to Diesel outlet stores, Norman explores the idea that not everyone will have their needs met with one design. The Gap being organized in such a way as to allow for the ease of shopping for its customers whereas Diesel stores are intentionally organized to deliberately intimidate and confuse the customer.(p 93) Having read this I would like to pose the question how can one design a product or a service that will make everyone happy?

Reflecting on this question I recalled a video I watched where Malcolm Gladwell explores the emotional connection of happiness to the availability of a variety of types of spaghetti sauces. His presentation is very entertaining and gets to the heart of this question. He proposes that it is not possible to meet the needs of every consumer with one product, one type of spaghetti sauce, but the designers of spaghetti sauce need to provide a number of options of sauces which will appeal to the public as a whole. For food this would hit on that visceral level of design of a product. By providing options in the design of a product you allow for the personal connection with the product and thus make it more marketable. This leads me to the design of our product.

For our product design it is important that we connect with our consumer by providing options to allow for some customization of our product. This allows for a more emotional connection and will enhance the users experience with it.

Here is a video that I was referring to by Malcolm Gladwell.