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engineering, designer side of me says that the simplification is good enough, and, more important, useful.

    The three levels can be mapped to product characteristics like this:
    Visceral design > Appearance
Behavioral design > The pleasure and effectiveness of use
Reflective design > Self-image, personal satisfaction,
memories
    Even these simplifications are difficult to apply. Should some products be primarily visceral in appeal, others behavioral, others reflective? How does one trade off the requirements at one level against those of the others? How do visceral pleasures translate into products? Won’t the same things that excite one group of people dismay others? Similarly, for the reflective level, wouldn’t a deep reflective component be attractive to some and bore or repel others? And, yes, we can all agree that behavioral design is important—nobody is ever against usability—but just how much in the total scheme of things? How does each of the three levels compare in importance with the others?
    The answer is, of course, that no single product can hope to satisfy everyone. The designer must know the audience for whom the product is intended. Although I have described the three levels separately, any real experience involves all three: a single level is rare in practice, and if it exists at all is most likely to come from the reflective level than from the behavioral or the visceral.
    Consider the visceral level of design. On the one hand, this would appear to be the easiest level to appeal to since its responses are biological and similar for everyone across the world. This does not necessarily translate directly into preferences. Furthermore, although all people have roughly the same body shape, the same number of limbs, and the same mental apparatus, in detail, they differ considerably. People are athletic or not, energetic or lazy. Personality theorists divide people along such dimensions as extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. To designers, this means that no single design will satisfy everyone.

    In addition, there are large individual differences in the degree of a visceral response. Thus, while some people love sweets and especially chocolate (some claim to be addicts or “chocoholics”), many can ignore them, even if they like them. Almost everyone initially dislikes bitter and sour tastes, but you can learn affection for them, and they are often the components of the most expensive meals. Many foods loved by adults were intensely disliked at first taste: coffee, tea, alcoholic drinks, hot pepper, and even foods—oysters, octopus, and eyeballs—that make many people squeamish. And although the visceral system has evolved to protect the body against danger, many of our most popular and sought-after experiences involve horror and danger: horror novels and movies, death-defying rides, and thrilling, risky sports. And, as I have already mentioned, the pleasure of risk and perceived danger varies greatly among people. Such individual differences are the basic components of personality, the distinctions among people that make each of us unique.
    Go outside. Get some air.
Watch a sunset.
Boy, does that get old fast.
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    â€”XBOX advertisement (Microsoft’s video game player)
    THE TEXT of Microsoft ’s ad campaign for XBOX appeals to teens and young adults (whatever their actual age) who seek fast, exciting games with high visceral arousal, contrasting these people with those who prefer the commonly accepted norm that sunsets and fresh air are emotionally satisfying. The advertisement pits the reflective emotions of being outside and sitting quietly, enjoying the sunset against the continuous visceral and behavioral thrill of the fast-moving, engaging video game. Some people can spend hours watching sunsets. Some get bored after the first few seconds: “Been there, done that,” is the refrain.
    With the large