The delicate dance of delight
“Delight” is a word that we hear a lot in product design. Everybody wants to “delight” their users. But, what does it even mean, and how do we achieve it?
Delight is the art of breaking expectations
Understand people’s expectations
In the digital world, people have been trained on hundreds of different interfaces and paradigms over the years. At each point of your user experience, there are expectations associated with what should happen next. Understanding what these moments are and the associated expectations can make the difference between a delightful and disappointing experience.
Imagine you’re at a friend’s house and need to use the microwave. You’ll likely expect to set a time and press a button to “cook” your food. As it turns out, your friend bought a fancy new microwave with an unfamiliar interface:
Your likely thought process
- There’s the microwave!
- Where are the buttons?
- Oh, there’s this circular thing.
At step #2, our expectations are broken and the brain is jolted out of auto-pilot. What happens next can define the experience for your users. Let’s analyze two imaginary scenarios:
Scenario 1: 2019
3. Oh, there’s this circular thing
4. It looks like the iPod dial
5. *Twists the dial to set the time*
6. *Pushes the center button to start*
7. *Delight*
At first, the interface was unfamiliar in the context of a microwave, but then we drew a parallel to the iPod and quickly figured it out. When an expectation of friction is met with ease, it can create a moment of delight.
Scenario 2: 1999
3. Oh, there’s this circular thing
4. I have no idea what to do
5. *Brain scrambles to understand*
6. *Nothing comes up, begin fumbling around*
7. *Frustration*
In this case, we encountered something unfamiliar with no training model to help us figure it out. In other words, an expectation of ease was met with friction. When moments like this add up, it can lead to a bad user experience.
Having a deep understanding of people’s training is essential to good design. This knowledge allows you to mix and match expectations and invent new experiences that are easy to use.
Leverage expectations to create delight
It is human nature to store information in our minds as stories — an ordered series of moments.
The contrast between any two moments can trigger our emotions — like when Tom Brady throws a hail-mary and, like the ball, we become suspended in tense uncertainty.
In movies, music, and books, the creators control the flow and order of moments and keep us on the edge of our seats by leveraging our expectations. Humans are always anticipating. Product design is no different. You should consider every screen, how they connect, and identify opportunities to add your twists.
Ask yourself:
- What story are people used to hearing?
- In that story, what is unnecessary or missing?
- What twist can I add?
The answers are the jigsaw pieces you can finesse to find opportunities for delight.
Take, for example, the pull to refresh paradigm invented by Loren Brichter.
The story people were used to was pressing a separate refresh button, most likely borrowed from web browser convention.
Loren leveraged Apple’s scrolling behavior to consolidate the unnecessary button with a behavior people were already doing. A great play on expectations. Much delight was had by all.
Infuse the experience with personality
People treat computers like people, so be good people.
If your product was a person, who would they be? Are they outgoing or conservative? Are they trustworthy? Are they friendly or professional? Think of someone who you find delightful, what are their qualities?
Defining your product’s personality can help you develop a consistent tone with your users. All of the dialogs, onboarding screens, notifications, error messages, emails, and FAQs are key areas to express personality. These important touch points are often overlooked because they’re usually created in the last mile of shipping something.
When writing copy, ask yourself:
- Is it helpful?
- Is it concise?
- Is it in line with our personality and values?
I typically like to keep app copy to a single subject line and then a single sentence that takes up no more than two lines. People don’t like to read, so try to make it as pithy as possible.
How you communicate with your users can add a delightful ambiance to your product.
Be predictably unpredictable
Pablo Escobar on Narcos. Apple in 2012. Walter White on Breaking Bad. Playing ‘Never Have I Ever’. Secret. What do they have in common? They all earned a reputation of consistently delivering the unexpected. You don’t know exactly what will happen, but you know it’s going to be good.
If you can create a pattern of delightfully breaking expectations so much that your users start to expect their expectations to be broken, then you’re in a good place. This means that your audience has developed a relationship of trust with your product through the consistency of your experience.
If you’re like me, when you encounter a frustrating experience that lets you down, it can be upsetting. It can be perceived as “they don’t care about me!”. It can directly affect your relationship with the company and build resentment.
When your design decisions demonstrate you truly understand the user’s perspective, people recognize it, and you get their attention. They notice that you have a unique point of view, and that you have an interest in them that feels authentic. This can create a loving relationship with your product, and turn your users into supporters who will talk about you with their friends.
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