I believe products are like humans. Like a human, a product gets created from nothing. It lives & breathes, interacts & communicates, changes with time, forms relationships, and gives birth to a new generation. Hated by a few, disliked by some, and loved by many!

Wait, back up! Let’s take it from the top. I sometimes find myself in discussions with people over what a well-designed product is. Some say it’s the “look and feel”, some say it’s “how it works”, and some even say “it’s whatever gets the most business, bruh!” While there are almost no conclusions to these conversations bruh, they give me professional existential crises (a profexistential crisis as I like to call it!), make me doubt my work, and question our product!

I believe as design/product guys, it’s our job to make something users love. But, is it really that important that the users ‘love’ your product? What makes a product love-able? How do we make something which is loved? I find answers in humans and emotions.

We hoomans are ruled by our emotions! Emotions triumph over logic and cognition many times. Perhaps that’s the reason I choose to wear HMT mechanical watches which can never be trusted. Perhaps that’s why my friend Nikhit wears the most uncomfortable, incredibly heavy sneakers yet the coolest shoes ever(as I have been told). Heck, we hire someone over someone else because we like them better.

And I thought sneakers are supposed to be comfortable!

One thing which distinguishes a human from a product though is that a product has a well-defined purpose. Every basic product serves a function. But a loveable product doesn’t stop there; it satisfies the user’s emotional & visceral needs too. In fact, satisfying and catering to emotions IS one of its functions. To oversimply, a well-designed product, one which users love, fulfills users’ functional needs while invoking positive emotions (surprise, happiness, pride, relief, joy, nostalgia, interest etc.)and avoiding any negative ones (anxiety, fear, confusion, anger, boredom, annoyance etc.).

In Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman says — “Great designers produce pleasurable experiences.”. I say Great products produce pleasurable experiences. For it’s not just a designer’s job to create this experience, but the whole product teams’. The experience determines how fondly people remember their interactions. Quite similar to how we remember and still love all our best friends we have had and the worst people we have met in life, innit?

Every screen, interaction and every action invokes certain emotions within the users. While some might say that a good UI is invisible, while contextual, it doesn’t stop there! A good UI lets you do your job without frustrating you and while making you smile. Just like a good colleague.

Stealing from Mr. Milton Glaser, a good UI informs and delights!

OK! Fair enough. How do we do that?

Step 1: Know your values.

It’s important for every human to hold some values for herself. These are the values you abide by. You form your personality around these values. These values could be around honesty, integrity, equity, family, love or maybe even about non-stop pleasures, drugs, rock & roll.

And just like a human, every brand and product needs certain values & traits to live by. Ask yourself (or your co-founder, or your marketing guy), if your product were a person, what kind of person she would be? Would that person be witty or serious? These values depend on who your product is interacting with. What has worked for other people might not work for you of course. A product interacting with college students can afford to be trendy & witty but maybe not so much (but not necessarily) if your product is for their parents. Other such values for a product are friendliness, snarkiness, transparency, honesty, humorous, caring, cool, cute, etc.

Don’t try to make your product a robot; try to make it an intelligent, emotional & compassionate human.

The butter passing robot tilts his head down suggesting his human-ness

Step 2: Implement those values without distracting users from the functions and messing up with the usability.

There is no recipe to making this humanized robot though. It’s big and little things coming together. But don’t start designing the ‘humanized’ or ‘emotional’ product right away. Start with the basics! Write the emotional-less UX copy about WHYs and HOWs, analyze the data, make the wireframe version, test the usability and iterate. Know how you want users to feel when they use your product. Align them with your product values. Only when the functions are working well, dwell into how you can invoke those emotions. Fit your product values in every mode of communication (copy, animation, illustration etc.) and stick to them!