Designing for Emotional Impact
Designing for emotional impact is an important part of creating user-centric interfaces. There are a wide array of emotions that users experience, all of which can be narrowed down to being either positive or negative. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) designers should be most concerned with emotions like satisfaction and frustration. The goal of designing user-centric interfaces is to provide the user with the best experience possible. In website design, in particular, the goal is to allow the user to locate what they are looking for as quickly as possible. In order to accomplish this, we need to have meaningful content that is easy and enjoyable to access, further encouraging users to spend time on your site.
Satisfaction
Satisfaction is a positive feeling that we have when our needs are being met whether the particular need is to buy a product, learn a concept, or find contact information. The longer it takes for our needs to be satisfied the more frustrated we become. You know when you go to a company’s website to make a purchase and the entire process is streamlined and painless? The best e-commerce experiences provide an intuitive shopping experience with search menus and related items, and allow for one step check out with delivery to your door. Every time you experience this type of happiness because of being satisfied you will associate it with the brand that you trusted to provide you with that experience. Your view of that brand is better each time you trust them.
Frustration
Frustration is a negative emotion that we experience when our expectations are not fulfilled. You know when you go to a company’s website expecting to find a customer service phone number, but can’t? You spend 5-10 minutes on their site and just can’t find any contact information at all, how can this be? Even though the company may indeed have contact information on their website, it is not easily accessible to the user. As a result of this poor design, the main emotion that you experience is frustration; your expectation was that the company would follow industry standards and have some contact information easily accessible. Now your view of the company’s brand is slightly worse than it was prior to this experience.
The Takeaway
By understanding the level of satisfaction that our users are achieving, we can design more useful and user-friendly interfaces that provide positive experiences. Likewise, by understanding specific stick points and areas that cause users to experience frustration we can understand what is not working and how we can improve it to increase satisfaction and strengthen brand equity. As HCI designers, it is our goal to create an experience that avoids user frustration and provides user satisfaction as much as possible. When a user experiences positive reinforcement they are likely not only to return but also to tell their friends about you.