Understanding of the designer’s intent into eliciting emotions in shape preferences of consumers could offer much benefits in human–product interaction. The study focussed on identifying the stimulation of emotional patterns on shape design of household electric iron considering a set of six emotions: Satisfaction, Desire, Joy, Anger, Boredom and Fear. The study started with a broader collection of branded household electric iron categorizing into simple and complex in terms of handle and outer shell/cover design cross-sectional shapes. Selected participants were briefed about the task where represented stimuli in each category was shown to report their emotional responses employing the PrEmo tool animations. An online survey was conducted to record the emotions experienced when presented with any of the represented stimuli in three shape categories of iron. ANOVA has been performed to correlate simplicity and complexity of shape design of handle and outer shell/cover of electric iron with the aforementioned set of six emotions. The findings of this research allowed us to gain insights into how individuals perceive and emotionally respond to different designs based on their structural complexity. This research adds to the existing body of knowledge on emotional design by facilitating a structured incorporation of emotional considerations into the physical design of tangible products.