Your Emotions Make Better Products. Here’s How

Consumer Tech Your Emotions Make Better Products. Here’s How Jennifer Kite-Powell Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jul 22, 2022, 02:22pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin French startup Odaptos is using AI to detect emotions in product testing getty In the 1960s, Professor Albert Mehrabian had a theory about nonverbal communication. He believed there were subtle ways people convey likes/dislikes, power/leadership, discomfort/insecurity, social attractiveness, persuasiveness, and when people are being deceptive. From Mehrabian’s studies, the 7-38-55 Communication model was born.

The model asserted that 7% of the meaning of feelings and attitudes played out in words used in verbal communications, 38% in tone and voice, and 55% through body language, specifically facial expressions. Maximilien Joannides, co-founder and president of the French start-up Odaptos , says his company wants to humanize the way digital and physical products are conceived based on the emotions of the user. Odaptos created a proprietary video conference tool using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect emotions for use in product testing with customers as they are using digital devices like web pages, applications and mobile apps.

“Emotions are a huge part of how humans learn, accept and engage with old and new experiences,” said Joannides. The company uses Natural Language Processing and analysis to define the sentiment and the sentimental charge of negative, neutral and positive emotions. The tool also uses facial recognition to analyze the seven universal emotions – happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust and contempt.

MORE FOR YOU Google Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event Companies from various industries – healthcare, marketing, development and e-commerce – can use AI to test any digital product accessed and used from a browser. Product testers log into Odaptos’ video conference application and answer questions while actively using the tested digital product. Joannides refers to Don Norman , the author of The Design of Everyday Things , who said design is an act of communication which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.

Norman emphasizes that for people to connect to design , it needs to be visceral, behavioral and reflective. Nattu Adnan , CTO and co-founder, LottieFiles , said that when you have an emotionally engaging digital experience, that’s the experience you will remember and potentially seek out again. “Dynamic images and motion that are connected to those emotions remain in our memory for a long time — sometimes forever,” adds Adnan.

“Emotional design articulates the profound influence of the feelings that objects (digital and physical) evoke – from our willingness to spend hours on an app or spend a lot of money on Rolex watches to the impact of emotion on the everyday objects of tomorrow,” said Joannides. Joannides says Odaptos’ AI allows product designers to use emotional research in their daily work to create products that respond to the real needs of their users. “Compared to data-driven design that can be biased and lead to misinterpretation, companies can now create a better, more intuitive experience to reduce friction.

This also helps to increase the acceptance of digital products, increasing engagement and, therefore, revenue by building the right product for their customers,” added Joannides. “One of the highest cost, time and resource challenges for companies is user testing. Researchers conducting interviews lose around 25% of what is said and 30% of non-verbal communications,” said Joannides.

“With our AI, we can accelerate the process of analyzing data and give automated reports that can help product teams get direct and quality information driven by the emotions of users. ” Hedwig Heinsman , chief creative director and co-founder at Aectual , said that for his company, emotional design guides how they enable their users to create designs. Aectual, which uses 3D printing technology, focuses on creating circular and customizable interior furniture and architectural finishes.

Heinsman says Norman’s theory influences Aectual’s design algorithms. “His theory makes sure that what you create is always a planter, and a beautiful one. This ties back to his ideas about affordances, that for products to be effective, affordances have to be perceivable,” said Heinsman.

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