Part 2: Emotional Design Series - Why They'll Love Your Product Key takeaways while enrolled in a course at Interaction Design Foundation
Emotion effects the bottom line in business. The emotional experience a user has really matters. Think of your emotional response when you see a product, feel it with your fingers, or select the color you like. How about your favorite restaurant. Why do you go back again and again? Or, what about when you browse a website or view another YouTube ad?
We are emotionally based creatures. The objects, products, and services we use during our day subconsciously invoke emotional responses. These responses are manifested as internal emotions and prove to be evident externally through the actions we take.
In this article, you will learn why emotional responses to a product are at the very core of user experience. You'll also consider the fact that every product is a tool for the user to achieve a particular goal.
Before we dive in, if you are skeptical about learning how to influence user emotions, abandon that notion. Hundreds of others have figured it out, there's no reason why you can't do the same.
Emotional State
This word we call "emotion" represents differing mental states or feelings. Our brain takes in data from our five, and sometimes, six senses, and translates that to perceptions and responses. Here are three aspects of what makes up "emotional state":
Disposition: a person's current mood, possible habitual temperament, emotional outlook, the lens by which a person views the world and their circumstances.
Interpersonal Relations: stability and quality of relationships whether between family or friends, satisfaction with feelings of human love and acceptance.
Interactions with Environment: the use of objects during our day cause us to experience a wide range of feelings. (The computer shut off; anger. A sunny day; increased energy).
Biological outcomes also occur such as tensing up while walking over an icy sidewalk or changing the way we stand when a person comes in the room that we don't know. There may be a facial expression employed to cope with some disturbing event. Even if no external physical change occurs, responsive brain activity still exists. Our brain chemistry is always firing, chemistry that the logical part of the brain can hardly even influence.
Get It Right The First Time
The online E-Commerce is to humans as the ocean is to the earth. The scope is truly vast. The choices are almost endless. It's like something out of a SciFi movie, nuts, right?! This makes the consumer landscape a vicious place, competitive and cut-throat. You've got to commit to figuring it all out.
As a designer or marketer, you have incredible leverage and control over your content. You even have control over potential emotions that a user can feel when encountering your content. But, what you do not have control over is the emotional state that the user is in at the point in time in which they encounter your content.
You can change a user's emotional state. It can happen in milliseconds and most of the time, it's a subconscious interchange. This is where it's vital that you "design it right the first time". You've only got one shot at it, most of the time. So make it a good one. How to "make it a good one":
Build into your creation process the acquiring of user knowledge. Know the user and fall in love with the problem you're trying to solve.
Understand how what you create effects your users' emotional responses in what they see, read, hear and experience.
Knowing that the focus should always be on the user led me to name my blog, "Choose the User." Instead of choosing to try to understand what the user wants based on what you think they want, go and get real knowledge. Knowledge is power. It's also cheaper, easier, necessary, and the only way. So, be a student of your users. Learn what you can do to cause the emotional responses you want.
Why Emotions Matter
Both positive and negative emotions can be a benefit in the E-Commerce process, depending on what emotional response you want the user to feel. Emotions have lasting effect. They also cause us to act, do something, change our environment. If we were in a state of positive emotions all day, we would be less likely to change our circumstances. If the cloud of negativity was continually hovering over us, we may forget that there's anything to strive for.
Everything around us exists as a means to pursue a goal. The negative and positive emotional responses help carve out a path through life. We find out where we fit. Technology plays a major roll in that reality. These "tech tools" help us solve problems, achieve outcomes, and further our human existence.
If the hardware and software we use create frustration and doubt, we'll choose another tool to achieve our objective. Because the ocean of possibility is so wide and deep, a happier place is only a click away.
Positive and Negative Responses
Above, we have an example of an object; the beloved cactus plant. You may be able to identify emotional responses already from seeing this image. For some, a cactus is their decoration of choice. The low maintenance and long life of the cactus plant can be a definite plus. For others, such as a sore-fingered victim, the plant may have lost it's charm. Or what about a mother who just had a baby. She'll end up singing to the tune of "Bye, bye cactus" before too long.
As for me, they just make me shiver with fright, to be honest. (It was even a difficult decision to use this image for the post.) However, I also spent two years as a resident in Arizona. So, from a distance, I don't mind the sight of the noble cactus. The memories of living with my family in Arizona are sweet. What about you? Was your response positive or negative?
Depending on the user, a positive or negative emotional response is possible upon consumption of what you put in front of them. The happier the employee, the more work they will probably get done. The same rule applies for the user. The happier or more positive the emotional response, the more likely they will stay, click, or buy. So how do you create that positive emotional response?
Positive Emotional Response
There are many ways to invoke positive emotional responses for your user. This should be the main focus of any design or marketing campaign. Here are three ways to engender an environment that will create the positive experience the user will be looking for.
Remove all goal obstacles. Anything that blocks the user in their path should be removed. Why? The user has limited everything. They shouldn't have to waste their precious time hacking their way through your bloated content. Users shouldn't be expected to meet the puzzling checkout process you've created at the same level they solve their Rubik's cube.
Have you ever looked at the clock, only to realize that you've got ten minutes till you've got to leave. But, what about your purchase. You've put it off too long and now you've got to get it shipped or little Timmy's birthday present will cost triple to overnight. You most likely hoped that the checkout process was fluid and easy to navigate through.
The fact is, when designs are confusing, when the next step is not obvious, this is when your system breaks down. Understand the user's goal, then get out of their way.
Products are the means, not the task itself. Your product is the means to a greater end. Software, hardware, a widget, any object is just a tool, an extension of the user. And, remember, a user is a person, a human being, a friend even, someone who has feelings and experiences the vicissitudes of like. They are just like you, in fact.
So choose the user as the focus when creating a product or service. It's for them, not for you. It needs to be a medium for getting whatever done that they need to get done.
Consider the keyboard, a peripheral piece of hardware that interacts with your computer. This is a great example of a product that is just there. It demands no respect. You just type and the words suddenly exist on the screen. it has no flashing lights. It doesn't make cool sounds or usually isn't any spectacular color. But you can feel the keys and it serves you well as you've increased your typing speed over the years.
Focus on how the landing page or product will be used, not by you, but by the user. In understanding who, where, when, how things are used we learn how to design things that stimulate positive, rather than negative, emotional responses. A six foot long metal fork won't be used to shovel peas and corn into a user's mouth. But, it will be kept in the kitchen, only attached to the wall next to the oversized spoon.
Don't get clever with your product to where you loose the real purpose, which is to serve the user. Don't fall in love with your copy for your marketing piece. Fall in love with the problem you're trying to solve. Users have a problem. Solve that problem with simple and effortless finesse.
Objects should behave as expected. When things don't behave as anticipated, that's a problem. When results are different than expected, the user looses confidence in the product or process they are going through. Frustration. Resentment. Bad reviews. Ugly.
I downloaded a keyboard for my phone. I thought it would work better. It did not. The number of mistakes while typing increased. Somehow, to the programmers' poor development, the proximity of how close to the center of each button my finger had to be was peculiarly strict. I later selected another keyboard which works just fine to this day. There were hundreds of mobile keyboards to choose from, so I just moved on.
Along with this vast array of choices comes some unwritten rules of the way technology should function. There are many standards now and we as users have our expectations. As long as those norms prevail, emotional responses will remain ever radiant.
Here's good advice. "Enhance the positive" and "limit the negative". This is fairly straight forward. However, it all depends on the product and the desired emotional response you wish to draw out of the user.
Negative Emotional Response
If negative emotions are the bread and butter of your success, played right, they can produce positive results. Invoking emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration, desperation, loneliness, and other less than savory flavors can serve you in a variety of ways. Here are a few thoughts about this approach.
Negative emotions can:
cause users to take action
help users see their mistakes
help users realize and accept truth
be an indicator of their environment around them
help users decide that they don't like what they are feeling
create a desire to find out why they are feeling certain feelings
invoke the use of problem solving skills
Not all products that cause negative emotions find themselves as reinvented positive results. Designs and adverts may still find themselves overlooked or ignored. Products could end up in the waste basket. Nevertheless, the irreplaceable qualities of a product or design may tip the scale of annoyance to tolerance, or sadness to thought provoking.
Creating negative emotion responses can be a gamble. It can be incredibly effective also. So which will it be? There's only one way to find out. Know your user. This is the key every time.
Avoiding Negative Emotional Responses Through Use of Affordances
Products must afford a level of understanding of their use. Think of the use of text to represent menu items or navigation. Then consider the use of icons instead. A user has to think about what the icon means before knowing whether tapping or clicking the small image will take them to where they want to go. An icon and text may be the best option as shown in the image above.
Rex Hartson, of the Virginia Tech (2003) computer science department, suggested four levels of “affordances” that a design product, in particular, should follow:
Cognitive affordance: to design a feature that helps users to know something (e.g., a label on a button explaining what will happen if it is clicked).
Physical affordance: to design a feature that helps users to perform a physical action in the interface (e.g., making buttons on a touchscreen large enough so they can easily be pressed with a finger)
Sensory affordance: to design a feature in such a way that it helps users sense it more easily (e.g., making the button label font large enough so it can be read from a typical user-device distance)
Functional affordance: to design a feature that helps users accomplish some work (e.g., the ability to sort a folder’s contents based on filename, date modified or other parameters). This affordance should be coupled with the previous three affordances.
When evaluating your design, copy, marketing, a physical product, or a service, how does it measure up to these four affordances?
Early Usability Standards: ISO 9241
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created a multi-part standard which covers ergonomics of human-centered interaction. Part of this standard includes the evaluation of usability based on three criteria.
Effectiveness. Does the product get the job done? Is it the right tool for the right job?
Efficiency. Does the use of the product take the right mental or physical effort?
Satisfaction. Does the product cause delight and enjoyment?
The first two are quite obvious. However, the last item on the list, "satisfaction", used to be an after thought. Considering the user's experience as they interacted with a design or product wasn't always a priority. Fortunately, it is a top priority in most organizations today.
Most design and marketing projects now include a user-centered research phase. User opinions are poled, A/B tested, and various iterations are produced for prototyping and final development. User Experience or UX Designers are highly sought after and paid well. The skillsets continue to expand and there are even high level unicorns emerging from the pack.
In other words, we live during amazing times. There is no excuse not to consider the user now. No excuse for poorly executed design or poorly written copy. Your audience deserves the very best. All paths are clear. Any means to whatever end you desire can be secured.
Recap
Emotions are key to business. The emotional state of the user can easily be altered. Invoking the right emotion for your marketing piece, design, or product should always be central in your creation process. Any product, technology, software, or service should be treated as a means to an end, a tool in the user's tool belt employed in obtaining their goal. Positive emotions are produced when the user encounters little to no obstacles, an object serves as a part of the solution, and the object behaves as expected. Negative emotional responses are good, only if they translate into positive and expected results for you. If not, consider the four affordances that products should follow.
A disconnection between user needs, expectations, and wants is almost always a recipe for waste and unwanted results. Negative results will fill the user's figurative night sky like fireworks on independence day. If you can nail down the art of creating user satisfaction while locking in a high level of effectiveness and efficiency, the streets leading to your future success will be paved with solid gold.
Action
Commit to draw ever closer to your user. More importantly, understand what emotional responses you desire and how your product, design, or marketing piece creates that emotional response.
Pole your user base, especially hour loyal customers. Find out what emotional responses are caused from what you produce.
Analyze your design, product, or marketing piece and identify what emotional responses it causes you.
Create a plan to incorporate a focus on emotional responses in your design or creation process. Where are the holes and gaps?
Write a comment below and share your thoughts, responses and results. Teach us what you know and enlighten us with your experience.
Just go for it!
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