Design Theory: A Method to Understand People's Hearts

<br />Once, Foyin and Mr. Dongpo were chatting about Buddhism. Mr. Dongpo suddenly said, "When I was meditating, I used my divine eye to see that the master was a pile of cow dung." Foyin didn't take it seriously and just said lightly, "When I was meditating, I saw that the layman was my Buddha Tathagata." Mr. Dongpo was very proud of this, but later he heard Su Xiaomei say, "Brother, don't you know that all external things are projections of the mind? Your mind is a pile of cow dung, so you see others as a pile of cow dung; the master's mind is Buddha, so he sees you as Buddha."
An interesting story that leads to the concept of "projection" discussed below - a method of understanding people's hearts
What is projection ? <br /> In the field of psychology, projection is an indirect form of inquiry and investigation. Researchers use some disordered and ambiguous stimuli to guide people to answer questions and detect people's unconscious personality traits, concealed attitudes, etc. Famous projective tests include the Rorschach Inkblot Test (RIT), the Tree Drawing Test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), etc., which are mainly used to test personality, but require professional researchers to operate. The projection method is also widely used in market research such as advertising and branding, and is relatively simple and practical. Researchers use third-person questioning, association, filling in the blanks, picture-based sentence making and other techniques to collect users' attitudes, cognitions, and potential motivations for consumption toward advertisements and products. The following is a detailed introduction to the application method of image projection.

Rorschach inkblot test
What is image projection ?<br />Image projection technology refers to the use of a series of pictures as a projection tool to analyze users' reactions and understanding of these pictures to help obtain people's inner thoughts.
The use of image projection technology in market research has the following advantages: (1) The form is fresh and lively, and the sensitivity is low, which makes it easy to create an interesting and relaxing atmosphere, allowing respondents to relax and express their inner thoughts more easily; (2) Images are processed emotionally and intuitively, which is different from the rational and logical processing of words. Picture projection pulls the interviewees away from rational thinking and digs deeper into their emotions and preferences; (3) For some interviewees who are not well educated or are accustomed to visual thinking, pictures can break through the barriers of verbal expression, assist thinking and convey their ideas.
In market research, image projection is often used to detect users' perception of the brand, potential demand and preference for products, etc. For example, a car brand is launched on the market after a series of packaging, and the manufacturer hopes to understand whether the concept of the brand can be well conveyed to consumers. The researchers gave a series of pictures representing noble, economical, cheap, sturdy, light, cute, etc., and asked consumers to choose the pictures that they thought were similar to the brand of car and explain the reasons for their choice. Using this method, we can obtain users' cognitive and emotional information about a car brand from image to function.
Image projection can not only be used to test packaged brands, but also to guide brand design in the initial stage. The design center often uses the method of image projection when designing product visual styles and logos. For example, before the Hummer visual design, image projection is used to collect target users' product cognition and deep needs for TM to determine the style. When designing the visual style of the QQ Show Mall, image projection is used to collect target users' understanding of the sense of "fashion" and visual preferences.