In this blog post, we will look at why emotional engineering, which goes beyond the technology-centric era and adds human emotions, is important.
On 5 October 2012, the front pages of newspapers around the world were dominated by the same story: the passing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. People around the world mourned Steve Jobs in their own ways, both online and offline, and even Apple’s competitors postponed the release of new products to mourn his death. In South Korea, internet portals and newspapers covered the news of his passing on their front pages, and communities were created to pay tribute to him. Why did the death of an American CEO attract the attention of people around the world and spark a wave of mourning?
‘We believe that technology alone is not enough. Faster, thinner, lighter are all good things, but when technology takes a step back, everything becomes more enjoyable and truly amazing. That is progress, and that is what creates new results. Just like this.’
The above quote is the Korean version of Apple’s iPad 2 advertisement copy. This 30-second advertisement encapsulates the beliefs of Apple and Steve Jobs without any fancy words. ‘Technology alone is not enough.’ Steve Jobs always came up with something new and unimaginable in his keynote speeches. At some point, not only the global media and IT industry, but even people who had nothing to do with the industry began to pay attention to his keynote speeches, admiring and enthusiastically applauding them. He had the ability to create the future rather than just predict it. And behind that ability was a mind that cared about people.
Apple placed the utmost importance on people when designing its products. In his 2010 keynote speech announcing the iPad, Steve Jobs said, ‘The product should not have to adapt to the user; the user should adapt to the product,’ placing a high value on the user in the product development process. He also mentioned that he ‘tried to find the intersection between liberal arts and technology,’ revealing his desire to add emotion to advanced technology. Ultimately, he emphasised that ‘people’ should be the centre and target of technological innovation, which brought about changes not only in the IT environment but also in various social environments.
Even if one does not agree with the wave of change brought about by Apple, it is clear that science and technology have become increasingly important in human society. Until the mid-20th century, science and technology were machine-centric, developed simply to reduce human labour. Even in the automotive and aviation industries, the focus was on developing faster and more powerful engines, while research into human comfort and emotions was neglected. There were even concerns that technological advancement would threaten human emotions. Changes in housing, private cars, and the rise of online communication raised concerns that communication would break down and emotions would become numb, making it seem as if humans and machines were polar opposites.
However, at some point, the wall between humans and machines began to crumble. Efforts to incorporate humans into advanced technology gradually increased. When buying a car, consumers who were not satisfied with just a good engine began to look for designs that appealed to their emotions, and manufacturers began various studies to improve safety and convenience for users, in addition to aesthetics. Console game machines, which used to simply run games, are now trying to add emotional elements such as recognising the movements of users. Online, social networking services that connect people, such as Facebook and Twitter, are gaining popularity. Apple, a leader in the emotional market, emphasised the emotional capabilities of machines in its advertisements, which featured video calls between a mother and her daughter who had just gotten married, a soldier on duty and his wife, and a hearing-impaired person.
Efforts to integrate human emotions into technological development have even led to the establishment of a new field of study. Numerous books have been published on incorporating user experience (UX) into user interface (UI) design, and new university departments and research laboratories have been established. In addition, HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) theory, which studies human-computer interaction, has been established as a field of study, and efforts to improve the way machines and humans communicate are constantly ongoing.
So why is it necessary to combine human emotions with technology, or what is known as ‘emotional engineering’? How can the emotions contained in engineering benefit humans and satisfy us? The answer can be found in the purpose of technology.
Machines are a prime example of technological advancement. The invention of the wheel, the steam engine that brought about the Industrial Revolution, and machines such as automobiles that we see around us every day all serve the same purpose: to make human life more convenient. Machines help us do things that we cannot do or find difficult to do. Ultimately, machines replace human labour, so communication between humans and machines requires close communication, similar to the relationship between designers and manufacturers. Emotional engineering fills this gap. The goal of emotional engineering is to enable users to use machines to do what they want in the way they want by adding designs that allow users to feel emotions in machines that do not have emotions.
An example of this is Apple’s iPhone, which we mentioned earlier. Apple was a latecomer to the mobile phone market, starting several decades after other manufacturers, but the fact that the iPhone now accounts for more than 40% of the global mobile phone market share is a clear example of the power of emotional engineering. The iPhone’s touch screen system is designed to give users the impression that they are performing the desired actions in the desired manner by precisely adjusting the screen movements and response speed. In addition, the screen transition system and multi-touch gestures are designed to resemble human cognition, making the device easy to use.
Ultimately, the conclusion can be summarised in one sentence: ‘Technology alone is not enough.’ Consumers no longer want technology for its own sake. They want to see what technology can do for them. Just as the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society emphasised the importance of scientific and technological development, emotional engineering may be the answer as we move into the information society. Science and technology, which were once thought to be incompatible, are gradually becoming one, and a bridge called emotional engineering is being built between machines and humans, which once seemed so distant. In this changing era, the role of engineers is to become emotional engineers who connect humans and science and technology.
