Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  AskDon: Design + Relationships (30 Nov 2004) Inspired by some of your comments on aesthetics and emotion in design I have been thinking about its application to relationships; here are some thoughts: Are people more tolerant of attractive partners? Do we overlook defects? Do we put up with more errors than we would do with similar less attractive models? Do people expect attractive people to be dumber? I recall a national radio show had a phone-in about the correlation between attractiveness and cleverness in the female of the species, which I presume applies to males as well if indeed it does hold true (professors being the exception to this rule of course!) – the usability equivalent may be people like my grandparents that shy away from flash, new technology as they don't think they’ll be able to use it (i.e. it's less useable than the plain stuff). Is there a utility model for relationships? Attractiveness + Cleverness + Wealth + X + Y = Z Article URL: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/design_relationshi.html Read 57 more articles from Don Norman sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: AskDon: Tell me why is emotional design important for you, and for education and learning?     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy