Anxiety Rx: How Emotional Design Cures Experiences

I spoke at the UXIndia 24 conference about emotional design, and this is for people who weren’t there 👋🏻

Ever noticed Swiggy’s order confirmation screen? As your order moves from “Confirmed” to “Out for delivery,” a scooter icon zips across the screen, creating a sense of excitement and anticipation. This playful interaction lightens the waiting time and makes users feel more connected to the process, reducing anxiety and enhancing the overall experience.

These kinds of designs evoke a specific emotion in users is called Emotional Design.

Quote on emotional design by Don Norman

Emotional Design as a formal concept is most closely associated with Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist and usability expert. He introduced and popularized the idea in his 2004 book, “Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.”

So, why emotional design?

Everyone uses psychological principles, mental models, etc. to design for users. But why is emotional design given a separate position?

Emotions are a powerful tool in design, helping to build personal connections with users and strengthen brand loyalty. And humans are 80% emotional & 20% logical.

Here are 2 proofs for the same.

Proof 1:

Look at the 2 screens below.

Even though A has a bit extra data compared to B, our mind chooses B due to its visual appeal, and it evokes a calming emotion in us. This is one example of how our minds work emotionally, before analyzing logically.

Proof 2:

Ever wondered why prosthetics are made to match human skin color and not left just usable with cyborg-like legs or hands?

Different type of prosthetics

Prosthetics are not just a replacement for a missing limb, they also create a sense of belonging among other people, which in turn boosts the confidence of a user, thus the emotional need of a user is satiated.

Both of these are the result of a good emotional design.

What is emotional design?

Emotional design is all about creating products, interfaces, and experiences that evoke a certain kind of emotions. By influencing feelings like joy, trust, and alertness, we enhance emotional bonds with customers, and experiences, and create lasting bonds with our audience. When emotions, psychology, aesthetics, functionality, and interactions come together, designers can craft truly human-centered experiences.

Emotional design is in a position similar to delightful experiences. It is not just functional (that just serves the purpose) or usable (that could be repeatedly used). It is a product that will be loved by users.

To become a good emotional designer, we would have to understand the following requirements:

❓ How can you better leverage emotions to enhance user experience?
❓ What guidelines can help you design for emotions?
❓ How do you measure success in emotional design?

First, we must learn about the 3 stages of a cognitive user experience.

A cat & it’s 3 stages of emotional responses to a box

Norman divides emotional responses to design into three levels:

1. Visceral Design — Focuses on the immediate, instinctive response to how something looks and feels (aesthetics). Just like love at first sight.
2. Behavioral Design — Concerns the usability and functionality of a product (how easy and pleasant it is to use). It is like ‘being in love’.
3. Reflective Design — Refers to the deeper, more thoughtful emotional responses, such as how a product aligns with one’s values or identity. It is like a review of the previous experience.

Design enablers for emotional design

Design enablers are tools, techniques, methods, or frameworks that support and facilitate the design process. They help designers generate ideas, solve problems, and create effective solutions by enabling creativity, collaboration, and efficiency. Here are the enablers for emotional design

1. Research

Understand beyond the pain points and feature needs. Analyze the emotional responses of the user in your research. There are different research methods for this analysis: Live interviews, Sentiment analysis, biometric analysis, facial expression analysis

2. Interface

Understand color psychology & use relevant colors for the situation and type of emotion you want to evoke. Use imagery that resonates with the emotion you want your brand to evoke in the user. Use micro-interactions that complement the UI & use typography that sets the overall tone.

3. Storytelling

Develop a brand narrative that resonates with the emotion your user subconsciously wants to feel when using your product.
For example, a banking customer’s major priority is safety. If your bank is marketed as the safest bank to put the customer’s money in, & when your value propositions align with their emotional needs, your product wins the competition.

Other best practices

1. Gamifying the experience and rewarding the users, will bring a sense of accountability and accomplishment for the users.
2. Put user in control and enable hyper-personalisation (the next biggest trend in the UX industry)
3. Build trust & transparency. Emotions are a fragile but powerful tool. Always keep ethics in mind when leveraging them
4. Measure the success with tests like biometrics analysis, sentiment analysis of answers, live facial expressions in interviews and task exercises, etc.

Emotional design is a way of life, not just another facet of design. Emotion decides the mind’s way of assessing situations. Understanding its importance and leveraging it in your design principles will take you one step further in the UX industry.

For more details on emotional design, these sources could help:
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/emotional-design
https://www.nngroup.com/books/emotional-design/

It’s great to see you at the end of this article!
- Designing a better future, one pixel at a time