Emotional design addresses peoples needs and desires which is at the center of product or technology development. Currently, there is no established process of emotional design in the field of industrial design to address research and design issues. A five step emotional design process is proposed in this thesis. Research theories and methods on emotional design were reviewed. Existing pantry storage products were evaluated. User research was targeted on women between age 45 and 60. Research data were collected through interviews and surveys. Research findings were produced by analyzing the data using a proposed data analysis method called Product Emotion Baseline. Product function design, product interface design and user experience study on smart pantry were presented. All five steps of emotional design process were applied to smart pantry design to illustrate in detail how the proposed process works.

Financial security in retirement is an important social issue, yet many affluent women may have behaviors, attitudes or perceptions that could be detrimental to their financial security—putting them at risk for poverty in their retirement years. A survey was developed and implemented in 2009 to investigate the behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions regarding financial management among affluent ($250,000 or more of household investable assets) United States women in their prime years (aged 50–69) to determine if Social Norms Theory could be applied to this population. Three hypotheses were tested: 1.) most affluent prime-of-life women have “healthy” financial behaviors and attitudes; 2.) the majority of women in this group misperceive the reality, underestimating the percent of their peers who have “healthy” financial behaviors and attitudes; and 3.) the minority of women who have unhealthy financial behaviors/attitudes will be more likely than those who have healthy behaviors/attitudes to misperceive their peers as having unhealthy financial behaviors and attitudes. The results determined that Social Norms Theory does apply to affluent women in their prime years and that a Social Norms Marketing approach may be useful.