Behavioral design concerns the pleasure and effectiveness of use, and is closely related to what is often called usability—the practical and functional aspects of a product or any usable thing in our environment. It focuses on how users carry out their activities: how quickly and accurately they can achieve their aims, how many errors they make while performing tasks, and how well the product accommodates both skilled and inexperienced users.

Behavioral Design

Don Norman proposes the emotional system consists of three different, yet interconnected levels, each of which influences our experience of the world in a particular way. The three levels are 1) visceral, 2) behavioral, and 3) reflective. These three levels, while classified as separate dimensions of the emotional system, are linked and influence one another to create our overall emotional experience of the world.

Norman's Three Levels of Design

According to Don Norman, the reflective level of design is the highest of the three cognitive processing levels. It represents the conscious, rational thought layer of the human mind where individuals reflect on experiences, learn new concepts, and generalize about the world. Unlike the automatic visceral and unconscious behavioral levels, the reflective level is where users intellectualize designs, weighing their pros and cons and evaluating how they appeal to personal identity and self-image.

Reflective Level of Design

In Don Norman's three-level model, the visceral level is the automatic, largely uncontrollable layer of emotional processing. It produces immediate responses to a design's perceptible qualities before conscious reflection.

Norman's Visceral Level of Emotional Processing

In Don Norman's three-level model, the behavioral level is the largely unconscious layer concerned with use and goal-directed performance. It shapes how effectively people carry out actions with a design, including the speed, accuracy, and usability of interaction.

Norman's Behavioral Level of Emotional Processing

Don Norman's model classifies emotional design into three interconnected levels. The visceral level produces immediate, largely automatic responses to perceptible qualities. The behavioral level concerns use, goal-directed performance, effectiveness, and usability. The reflective level involves conscious interpretation, learning, evaluation, and the meaning a design has for personal identity. Together, these levels shape a person's overall experience of a design.

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Don Norman is an interaction-design figure and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group. In The Design of Everyday Things (1988), he emphasizes designing around users' needs rather than centering the system or interface aesthetics. He also proposed three interconnected levels of design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective.

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