Three level of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective

Our responses to the everyday things of the world are complex, which are determinded by a wide variety of factors. How does one brand of product distinguish from another? How did a package of a product becomes an iconic piece? What are the design factors play in a object? It is necessary to articulate how can a design can impact on human beings in different emotion level. Reknown cognitive scientist Donald, A, Norman make an insightful theory which break down the design elements in to three stream: Visceral, Behavior, and Reflective.

Visceral design is what nature does. Human-beings developed to survive in the environment of a complex natural phenomena. As a result, we are exquisitly tuned to receive stimulating signals from the environment that get interpreted automatically in visveral level.

Behavior design is all about function. Appearence is not important, so as rationale. Performance does. What matters are four components of good behavioral design: function, understandability, usability and physical feel. In most behavior design, function comes first and fore most.

Reflective design covers a lot of territory. It is about message, about culture, and about the meaning of product use. For one, it is about the meaning of things, the personal rememberance something revoke. For another, very different thing, it is about self image and a product send to others.

Each of the three levels of design plays in its part to shape the user experience. Each is as important as others, but each requires a different approach by designer in different senarios.