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The importance of designing for both instant and delayed gratification to garner higher engagement.

TL; DR:

Give your users cake now and cake later or risk losing their business. Don’t make them dig for it, give them cake right now, and promise them more cake as they use your product.

Overview

Users are like children. You, me, that dude scrolling through his Facebook feed in the coffee shop; we’re all kids.

It’s like this: we all want gratification and fulfillment of needs and desires. We all have an itch, and we all want it scratched, it’s part of being alive.

As UI/UXers, it is our job to make sure that these itches, as they come up, are scratched, scratched well, and continue to be scratched while users are using our products.

Today, I’m going to share with you why designing for both instant and delayed gratification will help you garner higher engagement with your target users.

What is Cake?

Cake is anything that the fulfills the user emotionally, as a tangible outcome, or makes something much more convenient for them.

Typically, cake takes the form of fulfillment of the seven emotional human needs:

1. Comfort
2. Variety
3. Significance
4. Love
5. Growth
6. Contribution
7. Belonging

You fulfill at least four of these with whatever your cake offering is, and users will flock to your product.

Additionally, cake can come from added utility or convenience that is unexpected. Remember, “delight,” is just another term for unexpected value, so make sure your are promising, fulfilling, and then delivering even more value on top of that.

Cake Now

Let me ask you a question: would you turn down a piece of cake right now? If so, why?

Is it because you’re afraid of gaining weight? That you won’t be accepted? That you’ll come off a certain way? Maybe you have Celiac disease or gluten intolerance. Maybe you just don’t want cake…

Regardless, most people when presented with a piece of cake, right now, will absolutely go for it, no questions asked.

If they do ask questions, its because they have been burned in the past by scratching that natural itch. They have received negative feedback or consequences from doing something that is natural for them to do.

Let me share with you a fundamental truth: EVERYONE wants cake now. Even if they say they don’t. Our minds scream for it, our taste buds ache for it, and we crave that cake right now.

As human beings we are HARD. WIRED. to reach for that cake EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. TIME.

We don’t give a damn about our future selves or the health consequences, we want the cake right the f*** now, we’ll do just about anything to get it, and if we can’t have the cake we will find the closest available analog and take that instead.

What this means for UI/UX designers

GIVE. YOUR. USERS. CAKE. NOW.

If you deny your users cake now, they will leave to find cake somewhere else. There is only ONE thing that will keep users from demanding cake right this second, and that is fear.

You know that old, shitty management software that corporate forces you to use? The only reason you do that is because you need a place to live and food to eat.

If your compliance didn’t directly impact your ability to survive, you would immediately kick that software to the curb and set it on fire.

But there’s a much better way to motivate than using fear.

Fear induces hatred and resentment, a user will despise you and will eventually find a way to get rid of you.

No. The best way to get users to engage with your product and enjoy the experience is to give them what they need and want right off the bat without asking for anything in return, at first.

How to give users cake

Here’s how you can give your users cake right now to keep them engaged:

1. Reward them for signing up.
2. Give them variable bonuses early and often.
3. Reward them for using your application.
4. Grant them titles, status, and notoriety for good behavior.
5. Reward them handsomely for evangelizing your product.
6. Use animations, confetti, sound effects, and colors to make every small step feel like an achievement, and every achievement feel like a huge accomplishment.
7. Reinforce the behavior you want to see by giving them more of what they want and far less of what they don’t want.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about how to use cake to get users to act.

Cake Later

With that out of the way, let’s turn to cake later. What keeps a user coming back? The same thing that’s got you still reading this article: more cake.

Here’s how to use cake and the promise of cake to get users to do what you need them to do:

1. Give users cake.
2. Let them enjoy it.
3. Ask them to do something that is quick and relatively painless.
4. Promise them more cake if they do it.
5. If the user does it, give them more cake.
6. Let them enjoy it.
7. Repeat the process.

The promise of cake

You see what’s happening here? What we’re doing is developing a relationship of trust that they can always come back to our product and get more cake.

The power of cake

Understand that cake is FAR more powerful than fear, because pinning a user between two evils is a great way to make them ditch your “solution” at the first possible opportunity.

A great case in point: jobs that won’t let you work remote even though it’s worked fine for a couple of years now.

You think people are just gonna stay? They haven’t had to fight traffic, deal with cars breaking down, getting gas, lunch, office drama, random meetings, even dressing the part for almost two years now.

You think people are just gonna let you take that away from them? F*** NO!

No cake? They’ll go somewhere else to find it the MINUTE that they have the opportunity. Pivot and give cake, or be destroyed by your competitor who does.

Any business, product, or service is the same: offer cake or lose engagement.

Where’s the cake?

Ask yourself this question CONSTANTLY as a UI/UX designer, because it is the backbone of your product’s value and what will ultimately determine its success or failure in the marketplace.

What’s in it for your users? How does it make them feel? Why should they keep coming back to your product? Where is the cake?!!!

“Jobs to be done” is a great foundation, and fulfills utility value, but it means absolutely nothing if there is no cake involved. Users want cake, they need cake, and if you don’t provide cake, they will bail hard and fast.

Clearly identify what your cake is, where, and how users will get cake in your product, and make absolutely certain that your users are given cake early, often, and in good measure.

Do this liberally, and I can almost guarantee that you’ll never have engagement problems ever again.

Nick Lawrence Design
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