Designing delightful products users love ❤️
It is believed that all decisions made by customers are governed by emotions. Experts in marketing are aware that people make buying decisions unconsciously — based on their gut-level. As a result of this, they pay close attention to their adverts (across all media), to ensure that they’re communicating the right words (in the right way) so their customers can feel a certain way towards the brand and in turn, get them to buy the product.
Bearing in mind that we are emotional beings driven by our experiences, I’ve decided I’d make it a goal to consciously create products that make my users feel “something”.
In this article, I’ll highlight a couple of things that can make users feel connected to your product and brand by creating a personality and a voice for it.
What Does Emotional Design Mean To Me?
It’s about empathising with my users and creating human-like feelings in my designs. Understanding the pain and joy they feel when they use the product helps me build better experiences for them, by either replicating real-life activities and recognisable experiences.
People use products based on emotions, how it makes them feel. For instance, I use the animated sticker feature on Telegram (a lot) because without typing any words, I can (almost) perfectly share my thoughts and feelings to the recipient. It feels good.
It is believed that analysing the experience of an app or service is mostly done with the mind, not the brain. This can be very difficult to control.
Our emotions play a key role in helping us learn and understand the world around us. It plays a crucial role in influencing users’ experiences and perceptions of the brands & products.
Robert Plutchik believes that there are 8 primary types of emotions (Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Trust, Surprise, Disgust and Anticipation). He believes that these emotions are seen as a trigger of behaviour with high survival value. Just the same way fear inspires the fight-or-flight response. The aim for me is to be able to recreate any of the above emotions or deliberately create positive emotion for my users (which can be a little bit difficult but 💪🏽).
It’s about combining the empathy I have for my users and creating human-like feelings in my designs. Either by collaborating with the best storyteller or with the amazing motion designer on my team, I’m able to create the feeling of delight gotten from interacting with my product.
We can give “personalities” to our products by either replicating real-life activities and recognisable experiences through:
- Micro-interactions.
- Motion graphics.
- Storytelling.
Mailchimp has been able to beautifully combine all the above ways to humanise her product and brand by creating relatable real-life experiences and birthed a mascot (a cute chimp called Freddie) around her product.
They gave Freddie a great attitude that is always ready to get me in that exciting mood to send out that email. In an article by Chase Curry, he explained how they created Freddie’s hand (amongst other animations) to make users feel good about the product and brand. The team have been able to keep me engaged and excited through the product.
Is Storytelling Underrated?
Storytelling is one of the oldest and (still) the most powerful tool when it comes to creating a great user experience. It is underrated in UX design. Applying storytelling techniques is an effective tool for enhancing user experience. Every designer is a storyteller. We use pictures, graphics, illustrations and icons to tell a subtle story about the brand/product. Have we considered paying this level of attention to our UI copies?
Working with words to grab the reader’s attention is vital in product development. Telling stories to make products feel more human as opposed to sounding robotic. By sympathising with them where necessary or giving a high five or thumbs up where it’s merited, users will be able to connect more with the product (even without any form of animation, yet). By doing this, users see the team behind the product and brand as opposed to the pixels (which is a good start). This makes all the difference between a good product and the one users talk about because it allows them to form a human-like relationship with the product.
I’m currently learning to unlock how to layer my design as stories by crafting out Design Persona as opposed to creating User Persona. I believe it will help tackle design problems from different perspectives.
Things To Note
A basic design is always functional but a great one will always say something. — Tinker Hatfield, shoe designer, Nike.
Good products are functional, great products are more than merely functional, they are usable and simple.
So make it simple!
Make it so intuitive that it takes the human brain microseconds to process the information (the right way).
It goes beyond knowing how users interact with the product to understanding why they use it.
- Why they are thrilled or happy with that new dashboard or website or mobile app or feature while others are not.
- Why it resonates more with a certain group of users and not all.
- Why some people share their happy and sad moments about that product and others do not.
Users do not know what happens at the backend neither do they care so much about the metrics I’ve put in place in creating my user flow & journey.
All they care about is:
“Does this product work as it should?” (Is it functional?)
“Does the product work fast without errors?” (Is it reliable?)
“Can I use the product without thinking?” (Is it usable and simple that it sinks with my life activities?)
“Is it engaging and fun to use? (Is it pleasurable?)
“Does the product provoke some sort of emotion?” (Is it meaningful to me?)
Don Norman was able to combine and group the above questions into 3 levels of design. They play an important role in determining great products.
Visceral level
This level is about attraction. Create an attractively looking products. The more attractive your product is, the more “Wow! Look at how awesome this product is.” you will get. This increases product’s credibility, trustworthiness, quality and appeal. It is even perceived ease of use and in turn, ignite an immediate feeling and need for the product.
Behavioural level
This level is about understanding how your users interact with the product; getting the right feedback to improve the product’s experience. It has to look & feel good and perform well. It focuses on how a structure or system meets the user’s needs and requirements. If something doesn’t work, it gives rise to a negative emotion which can lead to anger and frustration.
Reflective level
This is about memories, self-image, personal satisfaction, and experiences. The feeling users get when they use the product. They become more attached to the product and become proud of using it. They build a relationship with the product and recommend it to others.
There’s no right or wrong way of creating the right interaction design or writing the right words that can produce the type of emotion you envision for your users. Bringing your designs to life should be seen as icing on the cake and not the cake itself. My priority is to create a simple and usable product (first), then create an element of humanity in my products by creating a personality and making out a voice for it.
