Ep 296 | Emotional Design - How to create Memorable experience in 4 Steps
9 Nov 2024 · 6 min
Srinivas breaks down emotional design into four steps for creating experiences people remember. He walks through practical examples of how products stick with users and points to webinars and blogs for deeper dives.
When you're designing products, many times people tend to ignore it or people are not very attention to details when they're using your mobile app or physical product or interactions or website or anything. What is the real reason? The reason being they are not connected emotionally. Or maybe you have not understood their emotion, what they want and they have connected with them how to do it. In this podcast I'm going to give you four simple steps how you can able to connect with your users and design products which can able to last for years of experience of using them. Okay, let's jump in. The very first step which I have to tell you is first understand what is the problem statement you are doing. That is most important, understand the user target. Like what is the user's need? What is the user's requirement? And try to get a real understanding of what would be the requirement and which suits your user.
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Once you understand this basic level, then you can start going and interviewing these people. You can talk to the people, you can get to some details. You can also understand what is this people's real intention and needs are.
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Once you collect this raw information, then you try to associate a different emotions towards it. Okay? That will be the second step. Just the emotion meaning, like let's say what are they feeling when they're using this particular product or service? Or what are they feeling when. When the problem is getting solved? Are they feeling happy, excitement, sad, angry, frustrated? Try to understand the emotional of it. The reason why I'm telling you this is very important is this cannot be done with some kind of empathy mapping or user journey. And all this terminology, guys, please throw it away, all these terminologies. First go to the problem, go to the user, talk to them, understand what they're trying to say, understand what they want. If you are doing that as a designer, first of all you will have lot of clarity coming in your work. You will not feel overwhelmed, you will not feel going out of track.
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Many designers don't know this. They just start with some templates. They just watch YouTube videos here and there. No, don't do any of this formatting and other things, guys. Just be very casual and raw and watch out what's happening with your user. That's the second step. Once you're able to map the emotions, now you try to understand how I can able to create a wonderful experience for them.
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In this third step, remember there are three aspects, guys. First is the visceral level, which is the outer level, like let's say color, typeface and graphics. And Outer layer, right? Aesthetics. Second is behavioral. How I can able to make this product more functional, How I can make it more like let's say wonderful, usable, functional product for them.
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Third is reflective. How can I make this more memorable? How people can able to remember this after 5 years? Also can I create an emotion in it? Can I create a personality in it? Can I create the most rememberable thing for the people? Like let's say if you're designing a keychain, if you make it more aesthetically pleasing, people will like to have it.
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If you make it more functional, people would love to carry it around their pocket or bag or anything. Like let's say if the keychain is looking really good, but it has more sharp edges, it is heavy in weight, it scratches your bag, what happens? People will never carry it functionally. It is not much useful, right? Like let's say if it is more aesthetic also, if it's more functional also and if you make it more reflective, which is a third level of your behavioral level. Okay. Which is like let's say if that keychain has a name engraved on it, your name is there printed on it. Like let's say if your name is Srinivas, like let's say if your name is printed on this and if you're buying this Apple, let's say if you're buying this keychain from somewhere else, which is your naming, gray down it, what happens? You will never tend to forget that keychain. You will never tend to miss away. You will always carry it with your hand, your pocket, your back. See, we have touched aesthetic, we have touched functionality, we have touched reflective level. I just gave you an example of keychain, but you can apply it for any product and service, guys. See that is why many of the products now like let's say Apple AirPods, you can have your name printed on that. The engraving happens even in the iPad. You can able to print your name. Okay, so Apple has understood this user experience and they've created it for their products and service. Okay, so once you were able to remember these three parts, guys, then the fourth part becomes very interesting. Trust it out. Always test it out with your user. Okay, this doesn't work. Or maybe it works. You will have to only do a testing and understand because it's all emotional factor guys. There is no formula and process and a template to do it. Sometimes it may not work, sometimes it may really work well. So understand that iteration and go back again and do it. Okay, so the first is going to the problem understanding the user. The second is mapping out the various emotions which can able to attribute to it and various colors, typeface, graphics, visual functionality, everything around it. And third is about understanding three users which is visceral level, behavioral level, reflective level and fourth is splitting out the test, splitting the different different concept and testing out with the various users like AB split testing and getting the feedback and redesigning. This is the most interesting four steps guys. Okay, so try to implement it and I'm sure that you will be able to create a wonderful product around it. Let me know what you think in this podcast and register for a free webinar which has been given in the link below and come to my upcoming Sunday 11 o' clock webinar guys. Okay, see you there guys. And if you wanted to also listen to our other episodes, go to our podcast channel and subscribe to get further notified. As well as you can type out any pain point or any areas which you feel like stuck in design, you will find one or the other way a podcast around it. If you wanted a very detailed content for this emotional design, you can go to my YouTube live where I took a one hour master class for our student and before it goes unlisted, please go and watch it in our YouTube live over there, okay. And read our blog also in substack and LinkedIn we'll be able to provide a lot of content. Guys. Thank you so much and take care. And if you feel this podcast has added a value, give me a best rating in Apple and Spotify wherever you're listening. Take care guys. Bye bye.