Report and control visual sophistication and targeted discrete emotions in emotional design research¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (4 mixed) · 1 study (1 review), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The review recommends that researchers improve operationalisation and reporting of emotional design manipulations. It states "future studies should explicitly report and, where possible, control the level of visual sophistication when investigating emotional design effects", since variation in sophistication may confound cross-study comparisons. It further recommends that "Future research should also explicitly report which discrete emotions are targeted by the design manipulations and clarify their theoretical relevance" to enhance interpretability and comparability.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Studies must include visual samples of manipulated materials and describe colour, shape, anthropomorphism and sophistication parameters explicitly.

Constraints¶

• The review notes most prior studies did not specify which discrete emotions were targeted, so findings could not be categorized by specific emotional outcomes.

Target Learners¶

• researchers and designers of instructional multimedia

Target Learning Goals¶

• consistent operationalisation of emotional design to support learning outcomes

Claims¶

• Visual sophistication of emotional design materials varies substantially and may act as a boundary condition for emotional design effects [~W]
• Emotional design features are implemented inconsistently within and between studies, especially in visual sophistication and anthropomorphic elements [~W]
• Review reports that advanced emotional design with endogenous visual characteristics promoted learning while simple format and basic emotional design did not (Bülbül & Kuzu, 2021) [~W]
• Among human-cell studies, only 5 of 14 found the expected positive effect of high emotional design on retention and 5 on transfer; only 5 of 9 studies measuring emotions found the expected effect on positive emotions [~W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Juliette C. Désiron, Julien Venni, Mireille Bétrancourt. (2026). Mapping the Heterogeneity of Emotional Design Features in Multimedia Research: A Systematic Review. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10138-3