Emotion in web design

apple

How we interact with the internet has changed our behaviour. With mobile web access, social media/ networks and the like it's now perfectly 'normal' to be 'friends' with hundreds of people. These may be people we've never even met, but we'll gladly share every triumph, tragedy and mundanity of our lives.

In turn, this behavioural shift is feeding back into the way we use the internet and the way we view relationships. No longer do we accept bad service or poor usability… we expect a relationship with the companies we do business, we assign them personalities. That's what a modern brand is.

Today's successful online businesses are more likely to go for 'sexy', highly personalised approaches rather than the cold conservatism of classic corporate communication.

The master of emotional design?

With the sad passing of Steve Jobs, it's a time for reflection, to acknowledge his contribution and to learn from the master of emotional design. How did an 'erratic and temperamental' manager go on to become one of the greatest CEOs? The CEO of a then-struggling company he founded and was subsequently fired from?

Because he understood the importance of emotion in design.

We humans are far more driven by our emotions than we'd like to think. On a conscious and sub-conscious level we're constantly making decisions that we justify as rational but are driven by our emotions.

Nothing new there.

But when your industry is dominated by faceless/ soulless corporate entities who focus on the tech not their customers… if you deliver what people want rather than try to create needs, you're onto a winner. And delivering what people want means understanding they are driven by emotions.

Consumable experiences

We interact with the internet a lot. We're used to it; the novelty has worn off. With so much time spent online, sure we're looking for efficient and usable interfaces… but more than ergonomics, we want a pleasurable experience.

Now think about that for a moment. The latest 'must-have' gadget/ app or rockstar-ninja website could well be extremely useful, but I bet folks are buzzing about how oh-so-slick, fun and sexy it is.

The 3 cornerstones that a successful design needs?:

1. Functionality – solving some problem or enabling people
2. Reliability – keep doing it on time, every time
3. Usability – a breeze to achieve whatever the user wants

Get those sorted and you've created a sure-fire success right? Maybe. But there's one glaring omission from this classic view… where's the pleasure?

• Pleasure – just interacting with your design should make people happy

That's what you need to deliver if you're asking people to spend time interacting with your design, if you want them to spread the word, to become advocates. It's what you need to do if you want to engage people.

It's the simple pleasure of excellent design that people consume – lapping-up the whole experience, sharing it with others and assigning your business with a positive persona they can relate to.

Compare Apple's approach to Microsoft's. One company being driven by a man of insight, passion and taste who intuitively understands how to tap (pun intended) into what people want. The other a faceless corporate giant consistently focusing on impersonal products.

Steve Jobs was a visionary who not only transformed an industry, but also human behaviour. And he did it based on a simple idea – that design should deliver everything people want, not just fulfil needs. It should be a real pleasure.

Written by Jason John Mills