This article from at http://www.uigarden.net/
In the current discussion of where design is going and what matters, there is an emphasis on the user and his or her (emotional) experience. It is a hot topic in books, blogs and the minds of industrial designers and interaction designers, worldwide. The importance of a focus on (emotional) experiences in addition to a merely technological or functional focus is being stressed by professionals with many different cultural backgrounds.
As Levitt (1983) suggested in the Eighties, the world has become a global market place, or a ‘global village’, where each and every consumer shares similar values, lifestyles and desires for product quality and modernity. Does this also imply that there is something like a common ‘emotional experience’? In my opinion, the answer to this question is two-fold. First of all, people share basic emotional reactions and basic human needs. This makes us all part of the same species, so to speak. However, different culturally specific contexts can make a person from Asia evaluate the same stimulus differently from a European person. But, does this count for all products and designs?
A study by Morris and Pai (1997) measured the difference in experience of pleasure, arousal and dominance (PAD) with advertisements between Taiwanese and American subjects. The results indicated that there were no significant overall differences in emotional responses to the ads. Nevertheless, they conclude by saying that culture indeed has some influence on the emotional response to some commercials. This supports the assumption that there are cultural factors influencing the emotional experience. I will try to explain below how I think differences in emotional experience between cultures occur.