Fictional Emotions within Emotion Driven Design

The aim of this paper is to address imaginative experiences of emotions by drawing Kendall Walton’s theory of make-believe. Moreover, we use a design case as means for investigating how a child’s felt emotions towards a hospital situation relates to his or her imaginative experiences of emotions towards a fictive character in a computer game simulating the real-world situation. In so doing, we contribute with new insights to existing theories of emotions in design, which tend to focus narrowly on felt and measurable emotions.