Positive emotions improve health and wellbeing, broaden mindsets, promote creativity and enable long-term intellectual, social, and psychological resource building. These beneficial effects have increased the interest of positive emotions in the design process. More recently, designers are investigating how to elicit positive emotions, largely because of their unique salutary functions.

This insight gives rise to the concept of Emotional Design, approach that emphasizes how to create design that evokes emotions which result in positive user experiences. Designers aim to reach users on three cognitive levels: visceral, behavioral and reflective, in order for users to develop positive associations with products, brands and spaces.