Easter eggs, little delights in UI/UX design

How many Easter eggs can you spot? Dribbble

User experience is not just about usability and accessibility, it is about emotions. Positive emotions have the ability to connect and engage people. This is why it is hard to get rid off that old t-shirt you were wearing in that concert when you managed to get backstage and met with your favourite band. Or the reason why you keep that heart shaped rock, the one you randomly found laying on the beach because this is rare and you were pleasantly surprised when noticed the resemblance.

So how can we generate positive emotions with our design, engaging and bonding with people?

Small, irregular, unexpected treats can be more powerful, than bigger, scheduled and expected ones. Short term but fine-grained and surprising pleasures can create a stream of rousing emotions. Brains also thrive in those “Aha!” moments of discovery, they love to stumble on things, or even better, to figure things out. They also love play, it turns them on and going, it helps them learn, understand and connect.

“Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.”

Herbert Spencer, Philosopher

This is why a smart and unexpected UI design, a playful interaction, or a hidden feature can turn a boring or not particularly interesting product, into a delightful and engaging experience. Easter eggs surprise, entertain and captivate users, turning them into fans or even brand advocates.

Important information:

Before you invest any time or money into Easter eggs, remember your product’s true goal and value. It is vital that you nail the fundamentals — the things that users want, need and expect from your product — before you bother with surprising or delightful details. If your product is full of bugs and functions poorly, if it’s hard to learn and use, adding this kind of details can have the opposite effect, it can cost you your credibility.

Treats & delights are the cherry on the cake.

What should we know about Easter eggs?

1. Easter eggs’ discovery is not required as part of the experience. They cannot be the focus or interfere with the main experience.
2. Easter eggs are a human touch, a reminder that behind the design and the algorithms are real people caring and thinking about you and your interaction with their product.
3. Easter eggs encourage users to explore your product further and get involved as participants rather than passive spectators. They give them the opportunity to interact on a different, deeper level.
4. Easter eggs can act as special rewards for true fans, encouraging exploration and loyalty. Their discovery might demand a deeper knowledge, a thorough search, or some time spent with the product.
5. Easter eggs entertain users offering them a little fun, not only by being funny but moving, inspirational, or thought-provoking. They can break the monotony, as there’s nothing like seeing something new and unexpected while doing an ordinary task.
6. Easter eggs can create a quirky, vibrant and enjoyable personality for your product. They add a warm and personal touch to the experience, they make your product different and special, creating longer-lasting relationships with your users.
7. Easter eggs are memorable. They can attract people back to your product looking for more of that fun. They can also reduce your product’s learning curve and engage during the first interactions.
8. Easter eggs can serve as a distraction from a negative or unpleasant situation. A clever and fun design can take some heat off a connectivity issue or a 404-page error, soothing the disappointment and pain by offering a new perspective.

Different kinds of Easter eggs

Easter eggs might contain a playfulness in them, but they don’t have to be funny, silly and jolly, or at least not all the time.

1. They can be context focused, like in Facebook where the globe icon changes depending on where you are in the world.
2. They can be enlightening like in Firefox, where typing “about:mozilla” in the browser bar, you can read the gospel of Mozilla.
3. They can just add an extra functionality like in Google Hangouts, where you type /bikeshed to change the chat’s background colour.
4. They can be artistic like in oatmeal or Flickr where you can find some impressive ASCII masterpieces hidden in their code.
5. They can be teasing like in Westworld’s DELOS website, where a piece of hidden code shows a video with a link to the location of a presumably dead character and a short audio clip saying, “Hello?”.

Those Easter eggs are not as playful, but they’re still pretty fun!

In general, Easter eggs are not a passkey, meaning they are not the best solution for every product or they don’t have to have the same form or extent in every product. As designers we need to be creative and open to new ideas, but always in harmony with our product’s functionality and goals.

Takeaways

Easter eggs are more powerful than we think, but unless we nail down the basics, we shouldn’t even think of adding them. If we want to create a unique, top-notch experience and win people’s hearts and minds, Easter eggs are a good way to go about it.

Thank you for reading!