Emotional design: an overview

Emotional design: an overview

Emotion plays a crucial role in how humans perceive the world. It drives survival, and emotions shape our memory through experiences.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

What does this mean for us as designers, marketers, and advertisers? An experience that evokes a positive emotion in the user is much more easily remembered, and they are thus tempted to repeat it. If that’s not an excellent method for conversion and retention, Kevin, I don’t know what is!

Using this approach to design interfaces is what we call emotional design. It’s inherent to user experience design since the focus is on humans.

Why use it?

The goal is to create positive experiences that spark curiosity and drive our dear internet users towards certain goals (purchase, registration, etc.). Of course, we specify “positive” because the memory process also works for negative emotions, but that rarely brings people back to your website.

Emotional design allows you to:

  • Maintain personalized relationships with users;
  • Increase conversion rates;
  • Boost brand recognition;
  • Foster user loyalty;
  • Leave a lasting impression.

These are all things we aim to do to bring our brand to life!

How to use emotional design?

To use emotional design effectively, it might be helpful to know a bit more about emotions themselves. There are three categories of emotions:

  • Visceral: The simplest emotions, the ones we are born with;
  • Behavioral: The ones that affect our behavior;
  • Reflective: The ones that make us think.

On the feelings wheel, you’ll find how they are categorized, from the most primitive to the complex. It’s useful to have an overall view and know where you’re steering the project.

Now, it’s not about plastering a thousand puppy photos to soften up visitors. A good user experience requires research to understand who the audience is, what best practices and results are, how to present the offer in an impactful way, etc.

Once everything is in place, how do you add emotion to the design? 

Humanize visuals and set a tone that suits the audience. Move away from stock photos. Bring warmth, real people with real emotions, which is far more impactful than a Google-sourced image of a traditional family dressed in white running on the beach.

Design émotionnel : humaniser les visuels et déterminer un ton adapté à l'audience.

Offer surprising and fun interactions without hindering the user journey.

Design émotionnel : offrir des interactions surprenantes.

Gamify the interface to make it playful. A simple and effective example would be adding points and badges, like Fizz does. It takes very little to make the interface fun—a gauge, points, an illustration can make the visitor smile and deliver a message effectively.

Design émotionnel : Gamifier l’interface pour la rendre ludique.

Emotional design is easily accessible for all sectors. Even government agencies could have more fun websites if they wanted to!

At Kryzalid, we love creating warm and engaging experiences. People are at the heart of what we do. Feel free to contact us for more information!


Sources

http://feelingswheel.com/

https://emotiontypology.com/

https://www.usabilis.com/definition-design-emotionnel/