Expressive Design, Validated: What Google’s Material 3 Research Confirms About Physical Products

I’ve had a hunch for a while.

Years back, I pitched a concept for an Internet router that leaned into emotion. It used bold color. Soft curves. It felt less like a piece of infrastructure and more like something you’d actually want sitting out in your home. It never made it past the concept stage; deemed too playful, too different from the expectations baked into the category.

Every designer has those projects. The ones that never made it off the drawing table; not because they didn’t work, but because they felt… too much. Too colorful. Too emotional. Too expressive.

Fast forward to now, and Google just dropped data confirming what many of us suspected: emotion-driven, expressive design doesn’t just look good, it performs better.

Their Material 3 research is hard to ignore:

• Users find what they need up to 4x faster with expressive design.

• 87% of Gen Z prefer it over minimalist interfaces.

• Emotional design improves clarity, accessibility, and even brand perception; helping products feel more modern, more relevant, and more personal.

It’s not just UI. These same principles apply to physical products.

The future isn’t neutral black or white boxes that disappear. It’s form-forward, emotionally aligned products that still perform but also connect. That invite interaction. That feel intentional. It’s about emotional alignment. It’s about building products that feel obvious, not because they’re coldly efficient, but because they feel right.

In physical product design, this means:

• Color and texture as affordances

• Form that feels familiar but fresh

• Emotion baked into the silhouette, proportions, and material breaks

• Brand language that’s warm, human, and memorable

The image here is a reflection of that shift… a device that looks more like a design object than a utility. No visible antennas. No tech clichés. Just simplicity with presence. It’s not expressive for the sake of it. It’s expressive because it works better.

Designers in the physical world have been told to strip back, neutralize, and blend in. But maybe it’s time we swing the pendulum. Not toward clutter but toward clarity through expression.

Maybe we all just needed a little research to help validate what our gut already knew. And turns out, that concept I shelved years ago? It wasn’t too much. It was just a little too early.