E-TRICORDER
Find an object in your life that holds a special place in your heart, an old t-shirt from your younger days, the perfect italian leather wallet, the finest swiss timepiece, your 40,000 bike. Place it in front of you. Look deeper into it. Make physical contact. Then explore the following questions:
1. When you look at or use this object, what does it make you think of? Past experiences? The skill with which you can use it? The person who made it? There will be some satisfying experience or feeling that you may be able to uncover.
2. How does this object affect each of your five senses? There will be a series of details or aspects of design that will trigger your senses.
3. Thing of how you have connect the sensory clues you receive from the object to the way you think and feel about it. Can you see the connections you have made?
Try this exercise with other objects, maybe objects that you don’t have a particular connection with. What about these objects is different? Why don’t they tickle the emotions? Developing the ability to consciously select designs that connect with our emotions should help us populate our lives with meaningful, satisfying objects and not just more stuff.