Although I enjoyed it (probably more than I expected to), and although I can see how all parts of the book relate to one another, I still came away from this book feeling like it was actually two books smushed together, one about the way human beings form attachments to objects, and one about the evolution of emotion in robots--the objects forming attachments in return. And despite being only a few years old (2005), it still felt quite dated when talking about technology (particularly things like mobile phones and the internet; it did not seem to anticipate the rapid convergence of all types of communication). I was particularly interested in the way our emotional relationship to objects affects our productivity; if nothing else, this book has certainly prompted me to explore that a little more.

I tried, but I just couldn't get in the mood to read anymore after the first chapter. I can't renew it anymore so I'll try again some other time.

Perhaps groundbreaking when it came out, this book didn't age well. Our understanding of cognitive science and design has rendered 70% of this book obsolete. The core tenant of this book still stands the test of time, and its application is worth mulling over in your own work, however the remainder is redundancy and outdated materials/examples. Norman does entertain with his characteristic humor similar to The Design of Everyday Things (recommended), and it's quite fun to hear him postulate about the future of video games from a pre-social media era, but save yourself the time and stick to the cliff notes on this one.

Serious waste of my time. I did love The Design of Everyday Things though, but generally do not like these practical books. They always seem to have a few pages of useful information that are then expanded to fill the book. Emotional Design does not have exactly the same problem. Instead, there is only one line of information, then a lot of small useless stories and ideas. In some ways that is better, but either way is not worth my time.

Here is what you need to know:
There are three levels of design: visceral (objective look), behavioral (touch and performance), and reflective (thoughts or feelings).