Application of emotion-oriented design in products with an emphasis on the qualitative understanding of users: a case study of home saffron mill

In the last few years, the importance of emotional effects in the user experience has stirred some controversy about how to create a multi-sensory experience in products. Surrounding a wide range of products necessitates the creation of a pleasurable experience because interaction with each product creates a unique experience for all users. It can be said, products act as an emotional signal to users, whether designers add emotional features to products deliberately or not. Therefore, anticipation of users' emotional needs and accommodating them with product features, not only plays a crucial role in users' experience but also can be a factor in increasing the level of life quality. Besides, understanding products' emotional features can make a meaningful connection between users and their experience, and ignoring the sensory needs of users can exacerbate negative experiences and eventually take the product out of the production cycle. To wit, studying the sensory needs of users and extracting them in the form of quantitative and qualitative data can prevent future damages. Thus, this research by using the emotional design approach aims to answer this question: is it possible to create a valuable experience in the saffron mill by measuring five sensory characteristics such as pleasure, enjoyment, wish, interest, fascination, or not. Hence for achieving a better answer, two fundamental steps are used in this research; that is combining quantitive and qualitative methods that help to evaluate all test results accurately. In the first step, eight saffron mills were selected for the base experiment and after using by users, their results have recorded as a quantitive table. With this experiment and numerical results, a three-dimensional chart has been created showing products' sensory distances. In the second step to discover users' evaluation, different methods such as laddering questions, user observation, and team interviews has been used. The second step’s results have shown in a table under the name of standards, goals, and attitudes which was a pivotal starting point for creating a product character triangle and designing a new saffron mill. In this part, the new product is evaluated by users and its results have recorded in a numerical table and three-dimensional chart. It should be noted that all the steps of needs extraction have been done by the Pr-EMO method with a three-point Likert scale with three options: I feel, I feel to some extent, I do not feel at all. This study is in the branch of field studies in terms of method and time of data collection. The statistical population of this study has been purposefully selected from people who are very interested in cooking and use more saffron in their food. This research shows that by combining different emotions and creating a product personality instead of focusing solely on the assumed functional features, a more desirable, and lasting experience can be created for users.