Emotional Response To App Designs

What is emotional design and how can you use emotional design to increase app engagement?

There are a lot of buzzwords going around in terms of technology and application development. 2017 gave users "big data", "artificial intelligence", and the biggest of them all, "blockchain." This year, trends expect "dark data", "quantum computing" and "digital detox" to join that list. Emotional app design may be more of a buzz 'phrase' than a buzzword, but it is one that many, if not most, app designers will be looking to implement.

What is emotional design?

At its very core, emoti o nal design indicates the creation of a product or service in order to create a positive experience for the user(s). Using emotional design to improve an app requires that the app should be functional, reliable, usable, and pleasurable. These factors are reminiscent of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, with the functionality being the most basic need of all with reliability and usability coming one step higher each, respectively.

At the pinnacle is the need for the app to be pleasurable, meaning that it should elicit the emotion of enjoyment and pleasure in the user. If an app is pleasurable and enjoyable to use, that creates an immediate response in that user who is then more likely to return to using the app and therefore, the goods and services it provides. This is especially useful for someone in the e-commerce industry, for example, when returning customers translate into almost immediate gains.

How do you implement emotional design?

Keep your app simple: Keep it simple, stupid is not just an acronym restricted to business school. The less complicated an app is, the more likely a user is to stay engaged with it. Your app design should enable the user to find the simplest pathway between the start and end of a specific function on your app. The fundamental point of using a mobile — or wearable app as the case may be, is for the ease of convenience.

The more complicated your app is, the more confused you will make the user base. That will result in a high bounce rate from your app, effectively lowering significantly your user base. Conversely, a simply designed app will elicit a pleasurable response from your user base, therefore ensuring that your user will return his/her custom to your app, and by extension, your product.

2. Ensure an effective app flow

Your UX may be perfectly designed on paper. However, in the "real world" your application still needs to flow in an effective manner. Reactions to immediate situations in your day-to-day life would flow organically, and reactions to an app function almost identically. There is a delay between these levels: the first reaction is visceral, or fleeting, the second behavioral and the last, but perhaps the most impactful, the reflective.

What are the types of emotional responses?

Visceral: The appeal to your deepest emotions, rather than your logic and intellect. When you have a visceral response, your emotions are completely taken in by an application, in this case, and you have an innate desire for it. This emotional response overrides any other possible concerns, for example how easy it is to use, how reliable or trustworthy it is, or otherwise.

Behavioral: This means that your app has to work well, and perform. If your application lags, freezes or is otherwise not easy or straightforward to use, a user is less likely to continue with it. Ease of use also causes a significant emotional response in the user, who then feels smart in being able to effectively use your application. Conversely, if your app simply does not work up to the mark, that elicits a negative emotional response, effectively driving your customer away. A 2017 study estimates that 77% of people do not use a new app ever again, 72 hours after installing it. Overcoming that statistic, therefore, becomes key.

Reflective: As the name might suggest, this has more to do with the app user's self-image. This is where emotional responses come in. The reflective emotional response is concerned with a user's ability to project the product's impact on their lives after they have used it. For example, what 'values' does a user feel they can assign to that application? This is where an app builder — and a firm, have the most significant way to emotionally impact their users.

One could follow these lines and make a perfectly viable, bare-bones application that fulfils users' need for basic functionality. However, emotional design works on a deeper level, meaning that your app should fulfil all of the remaining criteria; this means that you, as the owner of a firm or its manager, need to work extensively on app design.

How else can one make an app more pleasurable to use?

Apart from having a size — and storage-friendly app that functions fast and quick with the least possible need for "embellishments", you as a company owner or an app designer should work on maximizing engagement. That works by increased involvement on the part of the user whilst using that app.

This can be done with the use of various tools while building the app for its intended purpose. The addition of emoji could well be a useful one in terms of personalizing the application for a user, and this is done by creating a very specific emotional response in his or her mind. One way of doing this is perhaps to create a rewards system. An early, and enduring example of this is Apple's Health and activity feature, which rewards its users for exercising two days in a row. That positive encouragement then becomes an emotional association for a user, who is now statistically significantly more likely to use the application on a consistent basis.

An even simpler example of this, and one that is relatively more recent even within its own ecospace, is Facebook's emotional rating system for posts. Until as recently as 2016, one could only "like" a post. The range of emotional reactions Facebook made available to users has meant an increased emotional response — and therefore, a population that is spending more time, and engaging more, with Facebook. This sort of strong emotional response is what emotional design is all about, and it is in evoking that response from one's user base that you ensure a returning user.

To use a real-world example, say you have a regular, sharp knife that cuts just as well as any other might. You also have another knife, which in terms of function is identical to the first, but has exciting patterns, cuts and is even maybe in your favorite color. Due to the emotional response it elicits, you are more likely to pick the latter. Similarly, you are more likely to pick an application that elicits an emotional response, than one that is perfectly functional but does not.

For a company, paying careful attention to emotional design ensures a recurring, loyal customer for their application, builds a relationship with their user base, and ensures profits not just in the short term but the long term in terms of the connection with that user base — making it absolutely crucial in forming that connection.

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