An Interpretation of the Concept of Pleasure in Industrial Design

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Industrial Design - Faculty of Applied Arts - University of Art (Vali-e-Asr Campus)

2 Faculty of Art - University of Al-Zahra

Abstract

Seeking pleasure has always been the inseparable aspects of human activities; whether the man craves for corporal liking such as eating, sleeping, sexual activities and pleasure, or they expand the limits of their own bodily wills and desires quite further to non-corporal domains such as, intellectual, spiritual, or even social territories: that is; leaving the self (ego) behind so as to be able to move into another non-self and infinite territory. To that effect, products have been either the tools for arriving at such pleasure (that is, the products are used to satisfy users’ functional needs and wants) or become the target themselves (functionally speaking, products are not obtained to satisfy a need or so but they are purchased to provide the owner with the pleasure and honor of only having them). This raises quite a few questions: What is pleasure or pleasurability? What is product pleasurability? What kind of relationship actually exists between products and users’ pleasure? Why does product pleasurability fade out so fast as time quickly passes and make their own users disappointed? Is it something with the product or with the users? How do people convince themselves as marked or distinguished by owning and using products; delusively dreaming to gain more fun and pleasure through procurement and/or using process? What are their motives? Can our finite earth afford superabundant consumptions of products at such accelerating rate!? And can answers be found somewhere within the concept of product pleasurability? As it is well-defined and explained, industrial, economical and financial activities of greedy capitalists and manufacturers resulted in a ruined environment which already switched the siren on for the quality of lives of our current, let alone the next generations. Even though our modern way of life relies profoundly on products but those catastrophic consequences cannot be continued. So, we, as designers are left to find the bridles for that crazy capitalist or money-based world so our people can live as they are supposed to live: truly honorable and useful. If we accept the idea that products, designed to provide users with more pleasure and attachments, will afford to be kept and used for a longer period of time, then we could be in a position that we may accept the fact that product pleasurability can save the world to its best of share. In this paper, the concept of product pleasurability is explained from various perspectives including literary, philosophical, and also from industrial design standpoint. The relationship between products and the concept of pleasure is then scrutinized on the whole and more specifically, from design thinking perspective. The paper concludes that if products are designed to give user a better sense of attachment to their honorable humane existence, compared to fast, momentarily and unsatisfactorily satisfaction, they would not need to replace and obsolete the product so fast to a delusive better one. This way, designers will take the excessive burden off the nature shoulder and let the world and as a result human community breath the life.  

Keywords


افراشته، س. (1397). درآمدی بر طراحی مثبت. نشریه دستاورد، 28 (39)،صص 16-24.
الهی قمشه‌ای، ح. (1390) سیصد و شصت و پنج روز در صحبت با قرآن، تهران، نشر سخن .
فلاحتی، ع. و رزاقی، م. (1396) سامانه های اشتراک گذاری: راهی برای مقابله با پدیده طرد محصول، نشریه دستاورد، 27(37)صص 26-33.
خادمی، ع. و حاجی بابایی، ح. (1391). تبیین مفهوم لذت و اقسام آن از منظر غزالی. دوفصلنامه انسان پژوهی دینی. 9(28)، 98صص-79.
حیدرزاده، ک. و حسنی پارسا، الف. (1391). بررسی تاثیر ارزشهای لذت جویانه بر رفتار خرید مصرف کنندگان. مجله مدیریت بازاریابی. شماره 17،صص 35-17.
علوی‌پور، م. (1397). سیر تطور لذت در اندیشه سیاسی کلاسیک. دوفصلنامه پژوهش سیاست نظری. شماره 24،صص 354-.237 لاجوردی, ف. (1383). مینو و گیتی و مراتب وجود در فلسفه اشراق. فلسفه تحلیلی, 1(2),صص 149-119.
Alba, J. W., & Williams, E. F. (2013). Pleasure principles: A review of research on hedonic consumption. Journal of consumer psychology, 23(1), 2-18. Bartels, B. Ermel, U. Sanborn, B. & Pecht, MD. (2012). Strategies to the Prediction, Mitigation and Management of Product Obsolescence. New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons Inc. Bourdieu, P. (2013). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Routledge. Brown, B., & Juhlin, O. (2018). What Is Pleasure? In Funology 2: From Usability to Enjoyment. York, Springer, 47-59 Çakmakçıoğlu, Betül Aybala. (2017). Effect of Digital Age on the Transmission of Cultural Values in Product Design. The Design Journal 20(1), S3824-S3836 Calio, V.; Frohlich, T. & Hess, A. (2014). These Are the 10 Best-Selling Products of All Time. TIME. Retrieved from http://time.com/92765/10-best-selling-products-ever/ Coelho, D. (2003). Product Design for Pleasure. In the 1st International Meeting of Science and technology of Design, IADE, Lisbon. Crawford, D. (1974). Kant's Aesthetic Theory, Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press. Dejean, P. H. (2002). Difficulties and pleasure. Taylor & Francis. Desmet, P. M., & Pohlmeyer, A. E. (2013). Positive design: An introduction to design for subjective well-being. International journal of design, 7(3). 5-19 Dorst, K. (2003). Understanding Design. Amsterdam. BIS Publisher Dupont, Marcio. (2011). The Social Role of the Designer. Retrieved from http://www.designophy.com/article/design-article-1000000134-the-social-role-of-the-designer.htm Frijda, Nico (2010). On the Nature and Function of Pleasure. In Kringelbach, Morten L.; Berridge, Kent C. (eds.). Pleasures of the Brain. Oxford University Press. p. 99. Goldstein, E. B., & Brockmole, J. (2016). Sensation and perception. Cengage Learning. Haque, A. (2004). Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists. Journal of Religion and Health. 43 (4): 357–377 [371]. Hassenzahl, M. (2010). Experience design: Technology for all the right reasons. Synthesis lectures on human-centered informatics, 3(1), 1-95. Hassenzahl, M., Diefenbach, S., & Göritz, A. (2010). Needs, affect, and interactive products–Facets of user experience. Interacting with computers, 22(5), 353-362. Heathwood, C. (2013). Hedonism. International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American psychologist, 52(12), 1280-1300 Hirschman, E. C., & Holbrook, M. B. (1982). Hedonic consumption: Emerging concepts, methods, and propositions. Journal of Marketing, 46, 92–101. Jimenez, S., Pohlmeyer, A. E., & Desmet, P. M. A. (2015). Positive design: Reference guide. Delft University of Technology. Jordan, P. W. (2003). Designing pleasurable products: An introduction to the new human factors. CRC press. Kringelbach, M. (2015). The Pleasure Center: Trust Your Animal Instincts. Oxford University Press Linden, D. J. (2012). The compass of pleasure: How our brains make fatty foods, orgasm, exercise, marijuana, generosity, vodka, learning, and gambling feel so good. New York, Penguin Books. Lee, S., Harada, A., & Stappers, P. J. (2002). Pleasure with products: Design based on Kansei. Pleasure with products: Beyond usability, 219-229. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346 Niedderer, K., Ludden, G., Clune, S., Lockton, D., Mackrill, J., Morris, A., & Hekkert, P. (2016). Design for behaviour change as a driver for sustainable innovation: Challenges and opportunities for implementation in the private and public sectors. International Journal of Design, 10(2). 67-85 Norman, D. (2003). Attractive Things Work Better. https://jnd.org/, Accessed 2019/09/03 Norman, D. (2004). Emotional design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Civitas Books. Plutchik, R. (2001) The Nature of Emotions. Archived @ American Scientist. Retrieved 01 September 2019. Schifferstein, H. N., & Hekkert, P. (2007). Product experience. The Netherlands, Elsevier Science. TED Talk. (2017). Pieter Desmet: The paradox of design Thorpe, A. (2007), The Designers Atlas of Sustainability, Washington, IslandPress Tromp, N., Hekkert, P., & Verbeek, P. P. (2011). Design for socially responsible behavior: a classification of influence based on intended user experience. Design Issues, 27(3), 3-19. Türkyilmaz, A., Kantar, S., Bulak, M. E., & Uysal, O. (2015) User Experience Design: Aesthetics or Functionality? Paper presented at the Managing Intellectual Capital and Innovation for Sustainable and Inclusive Society: Managing Intellectual Capital and Innovation; Proceedings of the MakeLearn and TIIM Joint International Conference