- Patrick W. Jordan
Patrick W. Jordan (born November 23, 1967) is a British/American writer, consultant and professional speaker. He advises many of the world’s leading companies on design, marketing and brand strategy and has also undertaken a variety of policy and strategy projects for the UK Government. He is best known for his book Designing Pleasurable Products, which is considered a pioneering work in the area of emotional design.
Early life
Jordan was born in
London ,England to an American father and British mother. He grew up inSomerset in the South West of England.After leaving school Jordan trained as an apprentice with
Rolls-Royce Plc . He has also worked as an adventure sports instructor, a motorcycling instructor and served briefly in both the British Army and Royal Navy.He gained a Bachelor’s degree in
Mechanical Engineering from theUniversity of Bristol in 1989, a Master’s inDesign and Ergonomics from theUniversity of Birmingham in 1990 and a PhD in Psychology from theUniversity of Glasgow in 1993.Career
From 1993 to 2000 Jordan worked at
Philips Design inThe Netherlands where he specialised in user research and trend analysis. In 2000 he was appointed Head of User Research atSymbian , later becoming Vice-President and Head of Design.In 2002 he was awarded the
Nierenberg Chair of Design atCarnegie-Mellon University , claimed to be the most prestigious appointment in US design education. He was the youngest person ever to have held this Chair.He started his own consulting firm, The Contemporary Trends Institute in 2001 while still at Symbian. This company, which he ran until 2007, had a number of high profile clients including
Starbucks ,Gillette ,Nokia andMicrosoft .From 2005 to 2006 he was Chair of Design and Marketing at the
University of Leeds . He now operates as an independent consultant.Books
Pat Jordan has written or edited 6 books.
Designing Pleasurable Products
His most well-known book is Designing Pleasurable Products (
Taylor and Francis , 2000). This has become one of the most widely read and referenced books in the field.In the book Jordan identifies four types of human motivation (‘pleasures’). He claims that success in the marketplace is dependent on connecting with users in one or more of these ways.
The four pleasures [The four pleasuresOpen University Article on the Four Pleasureshttp://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=159825] are:
* Physio – to do with the body and the senses.
* Psycho – to do with the mind and the emotions.
* Socio – to do with relationships and status.
* Ideo – to do with tastes and values.Other Books
Jordan’s other books are:
* Usability Evaluation in Industry (edited with Bruce Thomas, Bernhard A. Weerdmeester and Ian McClelland), Taylor and Francis 1996
* Introduction to Usability, Taylor and Francis 1998
* Human Factors in Product Design (edited with William S. Green), Taylor and Francis 1999
* Pleasure with Products: Beyond Usability (edited with William S. Green), Taylor and Francis 2002
* How to Make Brilliant Stuff that People Love and Make Big Money Out of It, Wiley 2002
Include Conference
In 2001 Jordan co-founded Include [Include Conference Web Pageshttp://www.hhrc.rca.ac.uk/archive/hhrc/programmes/include/index.html] , an international conference on
Inclusive orUniversal Design . This conference is hosted bi-annually by theRoyal College of Art References
External links
Patrick W. Jordan – Patrick W. Jordan’s official website.
* http://www.patrickwjordan.comBiography from Usability Professionals Association
* http://ukupa.org.uk/events/archives/000370.htmlCarnegie-Mellon News Article on Patrick W. Jordan
* http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/020411/020411_pjordan.htmlThe Pleasure of Pleasure in Use
* http://www.freegorifero.com/weblog/2003_03_01_weblog_archive.html
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