期待学は作り手と使い手の期待較差を洞察し正当化します。作り手や企業は市場に発表された自らの製品が多くのコンシューマーに「期待以上」の印象を持たれる事を心密かに望んでいます。一方でコンシューマーに受容される事を念頭に作り出された製品の多くは「期待以上」では無く「期待通り」の印象に留まる事も多々あります。
EXPECTOLOGY（期待学）はtripod design の創設者である中川聰が２００９年にそれまでのユニバーサルデザインにおける使いにくさの研究領域を「使いたい」心理という領域まで広げる事を目的に予測感性工学の研究とともに発想した全く新しい脳科学とデザインの関係に注目したデザインメソッドです。tripod design が多くの企業参加のもとで定期的に開設して来た期待学研究会では各国の感性工学の研究者やデザイナーがその開発プロセスにおける期待と不安、感動や失望について多くの示唆や提言を披露して来ました。
現在、期待学研究会ではセンサのテクノロジーとセンシングデザインに依る研究と開発が大きなテーマとして取り組まれています。

When companies and other producers release their products on the market, their deepest desire is that those products exceed the expectations of large numbers of consumers. Unfortunately, however keenly their developers may wish for widespread product acceptance, in most cases consumers feel the products are what they expected and nothing more. Expectology is a design method created by the founder of tripod design, Satoshi Nakagawa, in 2009. This radically new design method, conceived alongside research into predictive kansei engineering, focuses on the relationship between design and neuroscience. Its aim is to broaden research in UD from the question of what makes things difficult to use to the psychological question of how to create things that people will want to use.
We host regular seminars on Expectology, with numerous companies participating. At these events, researchers and designers in kansei engineering from around the world present a wide range of ideas and proposals, discussing the expectations, uncertainties, moments of elation and moments of despair that occur in the development process. Currently a major theme in these Expectology seminars is the subject of research and development combining sensor technology and sensing design.