Designing for Emotion: What Makes an Experience Truly Memorable?
Emotion is the gateway to memory.
What do people remember when they walk out of an exhibition? It is rarely the technical complexity or budget. It is how it made them feel.
Emotion is the gateway to memory. The more a design moves us, the longer it stays with us. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Peak-End Rule proves this: we remember experiences based on their most intense emotional moment and how they end.
Designing for Emotional Peaks
Good exhibition design is not just informative. It is affective. It invites reflection, surprise, or even discomfort.
Case Study: The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern (2003) remains one of the most cited examples of emotional exhibition design. A glowing sun and mirrored ceiling created a communal, almost spiritual experience. Over two million visitors engaged with it—not because of interactivity, but because it evoked awe.
More recently, TeamLab’s Borderless in Tokyo uses immersive digital installations to create wonder through light, sound, and fluid movement. Visitors do not just observe—they feel absorbed, even transported.
The Legacy of Visual Storytelling
The emotional impact of storytelling through visual media is perhaps best exemplified by National Geographic's photojournalism. For over 130 years, their photography has brought global attention to environmental change, human rights, and cultural diversity. Images like Steve McCurry’s 1984 Afghan Girl did more than document—they connected viewers to emotion and urgency.
This kind of visual storytelling creates enduring memory, often sparking empathy, reflection, and conversation long after the moment of viewing has passed.
Backed by Data
A 2022 EventTrack report found that 91% of consumers develop more positive feelings toward a brand after participating in an emotionally engaging experience. In museums, research shows that emotionally rich exhibits lead to 60% higher recall one week later.
So why do so many exhibitions still prioritize content over feeling? Perhaps because emotion is harder to prototype.
But when we design for emotional peaks and meaningful conclusions, we create something far more powerful than a moment of engagement. We create a memory.
A big part of my work with AI is used to prototype emotion for visitor experience!
In my line of work, I use AI processes not just to support design, but to prototype experience, emotion, and narrative. With the emergence of AI-generated film, we now have the ability to simulate entire exhibition scenes. Not just as still images, but as dynamic environments rich with atmosphere and feeling. A single frame rarely tells the full story.
So why not borrow from the language of filmmaking to prototype an experience? Why not explore emotion in motion? Think big. Think bold. In a time when creative opportunity is at our fingertips, we have every reason to design experiences that resonate, inspire, and stay with people long after they’ve left the space.
Make use of designing for emotion in a time when we are surrounded by opportunity to create impressive work that moves us humans.
👉 Interested in learning how to control your creative process with AI? Join the course waitlist here.
