Comments on: Older People Are Less Affected By Unpleasant Info?

By: Marco van Hout

Marco van Hout — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:40:20 +0000

I agree with you Trevor, negative emotional affect does have value in design and it is often a factor that is overshadowed by the idea that “designing for emotion” is only about letting people smile. It can have a role in warning people, pointing people in the right direction, etc.
I don’t think you mentioning alarm noises that have a negative character was a mistake. I just think that the link between the research in the Reuters article and the point you made (which in principal was a good point ) was a bit off track.

By: trevvg

trevvg — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:40:25 +0000

You make a good point Marco. I was also considering that older folks might be less likely to respond to unpleasant info based purely on life experience, which is why I question these findings to some extent. I’ve also met older people who seem to be filled with fear. It seems to have something to do with the amount of control they have over things in their lives, but that’s an opinion and I have no research to back it up.

I think my purpose here was to point out that negative emotional affect does have value, and is an important consideration in design. People tend to see negative affect as something to be avoided, but it can be useful if used properly. Maybe my mistake was mentioning alarm noises along with noises that have a negative character, like the seatbelt noise, which is not so much designed to alarm as it is to irritate through repetition.

By: Marco van Hout

Marco van Hout — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:43:50 +0000

Hi Trevor,
I am not quite sure if I see your point here. In the Reuters article, it seems that they mainly focus on bad information in terms of “not letting bad news get you down or affect you”. To me this seems to evolve out of “life experience” (older adults always seem more relaxed with changes or news, either good or bad), which is more related to a whole cognitive process than to the basic “startle” emotion they get when they would hear an alarm. In that case, I don’t think that older adults are less likely to put on their seatbelt because the warning sound doesn’t remind or affect them enough.
Therefore, I only think we would need to make those sounds louder when we would consider their hearing ability getting less.