Intuition in Design & Emotion? Transforming raw data into conclusions, a meta-analysis of the 2006 Design & Emotion conference papers

In any research field the transformation of raw data into conclusions is a critical phase, necessitating a systematic approach. The basic question is: How can I as a (design) researcher corroborate my conclusions? This paper is based on a study of the analytical/interpretative portion of papers published in the Proceedings of the 2006 Design & Emotion Conference. We investigate how the authors present the interpretative process in their papers, such as using specific methods for interpretation and analysis. It became obvious that there were few specific methods for interpretation mentioned in the Conference papers studied, though there was a wide range of methodological approaches from theoretical and statistical to purely qualitative. Notably, most papers did not mention any method at all. The issue of interpretation is certainly not new, but in the light of the topic of design for emotions, design (research) by emotions or intuition should be discussed.