Where is Emotion in Instructional Design?

The concept of emotional design (Read Donald Norman’s Book for further details) Ho is nothing new, particularly in product design. Many approaches that take emotions into consideration during the designing process have been introduced. One of these approaches is of course Kansei Engineering as proposed by Nagamachi. Though principles of emotional design have been adopted in product design, less its known on its effect in the field of instructional design. This is what my current research is all about. In my latest paper (to be presentend in CISSE 2008) "Bridging the Emotional Divide in Instructional Design: A Kansei Prespective", I have summarised clearly the need to reconsider the effects of emotion in the design of various instructional materials. Cognitive processes are important, so as affective processes, both are complementing each other in forming an effective and engaging learning environments to the learners. Many instructional design models neglect this, and in order to claim that a product or a design is human-centred, the role and effects of emotions should be part of the designing process. Thus, Kansei Engineering concepts offer such help. So far, i’ve conceptualised my idea in various proceedings and 1 journal publication. Now, i’m in the process of gathering empirical data to prove the feasibility of Kansei methods in instructional design. I’m pretty confident of this and do look forward to my published results soon. Till then, it’s time to get EMOTIONAL again!