The human brain is an amazingly complex system, which acts as a processor that consumes, stores, processes, and reacts effortlessly. We humans, judge products by experiences that are related to emotions. As an old saying goes in the User Experience (UX) world, “Interaction with any product produces an experience (emotion) whether it had UX or not.”
Let’s reflect on the definition of UX design. UX design considers how a user interacts with and responds to an interface, service or product. That response is an emotion. User experience designers not only strive to design usable, functional products but also to have a certain emotional effect on the user while they are using a product, usually a positive one and try to maintain it throughout the user’s journey.
There are 8 primary emotions – anger, disgust, fear, sadness, anticipation, joy, surprise, and trust – which demonstrate human experience. Joy, surprise, and trust show a good experience, whereas anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and anticipation reflect a bad experience.
Emotions & Human Brain
Many things help us remember things, which eventually help us make decisions. Emotions help the human brain relate to things easily and hence it is one of the most important aspects of design.
For instance, consider a random date and try to remember an incident or any situation that happened on that date. For a majority of you, it will be difficult to remember. Now, try recollecting the memories of your birthday or any other significant day, like the day your car was hit by another car, the day you bought a new mobile phone, the day of your results, and so on. Isn’t it easier to recollect these memories? Irrespective of whether the experience was good or bad, you will remember them.
Bad or negative experiences make us anxious and sad. Any application or web page not working as per our expectations upsets us, and can lead to deletion.
Emotions & Technology
You are elated when you get a discount during your online shopping. Your trust strengthens when your money gets easily transferred. You like being part of a live match while you’re traveling in a train or a bus. Similar to happiness, various other emotions get triggered by changing experiences. Frustration triggers when something doesn’t go the way you want, like when you can’t log in, or you get the wrong product delivered, or when you don’t get the required information, and so on. That’s how technology affects emotions. As we watch people struggle with technology, we realize that the problem is with the technology and not with people. If a website or an app is badly designed and doesn’t perform to expectations, it is obvious that the user won’t be happy.
“Good design starts with an understanding of psychology and technology.”
– Donald A. Norman
Emotions & Trust
Products that people love are the products that they use over and over again. On the other hand, products that they like, quickly slip from their mind and are replaced in time with products that are liked better or even loved. The user’s happiness directly affects their trust for the product.
When you think UX design, consider the entire human experience, which includes emotions. Use methods like user research and product testing to ensure the user gets the expected experience from the product. User-testing, deep research and subsequent touch-point mapping that identifies pain points, help designers identify the frustrations users may encounter while using the product. It is not only important to try to eliminate the negative experience but also to provide an appropriate solution for a better experience.
“Humans keep emotions and emotions keep experience alive”
As a UX design agency, 17Seven strives to attain better experience for users with every product we make. Our aim is to make the users happy and give them joy while interacting with any mobile or web product they use and make their life easier.
Say hello, for any mobile or web app you want to build with us.
