Stop limiting your product designs to the digital space. Here’s why.

Emotional Appeal & Human Environment Design

Zack Gehin ☀️
Jul 25, 2017 · 13 min read

Preface

Since the dot com boom, the internet has become an unstoppable force paving the way for super apps more intelligent and realistic than ever. Those who take advantage of the opportunity to create these apps have the power to disrupt traditional industries and help solve social and environmental issues. How’s that for dramatic?

The Reality

What is the secret behind successful products from companies like Airbnb, Netflix, and Snapchat? How are these leaders driving user engagement, time devotion, and conversions through the ceiling? How do we model their success in order to prepare for the future as they have prepared?

  1. Are they implementing overused “premium” fonts?
  2. Do they have product experiences limited to the digital space?

The future of product design is here

Do you have a technology vision of the future?

  1. Identifies user motives and desired behaviors.
  2. Guides user interface design by setting forth a visual of the user’s desired environment
  3. Blurs the lines between the digital and material environment.
  4. Creates visceral appeal and sets the stage for designing emotional appeal triggers.

The first leap in environment design — Interfaces

Material Design. Google’s Material Design has painted millions of applications since it’s launch — brightening apps with rich color, swift motion effects, and the concept of light and depth working together throughout an interface. With material, no longer do modals, drawers, and popups appear abruptly and intrusively. They artfully ease in and out of view. Imagine your home’s front door. How would you feel if you turned the doorknob and the door flung open? You might feel like you’re in the movie Poltergeist and run for the hills! Material brings the graceful swing of a door to interface design. This was the beginning of environment models design. If not the first hybrid of skeuomorphism and flat design to represent a natural reality virtually. Material design brought science from the real world environment to user interfaces.

Follow the leader, learn from the best

Microsoft’s take on material design — Fluent Design

Snappy Case Study — Snapchat:

Open Snapchat on your phone. Notice the first screen you land on. It’s the camera and what you see is the real world in front of you. Swipe to the stories and notice the transition. The header contains the camera’s view until the very last second. This is Snap’s environment design. The movements are fluid, smooth, and intelligently force a user to navigate through the camera view to view stories. This experience brings the user’s real world reality into the product design, resulting in a more natural, addictive, and enjoyable experience — Snap is no longer an app, it’s part of your eyesight. It’s your tool for capturing reality and joining the reality of others. Additionally, this experience increases the likelihood of engagement with the camera.

(Coolest Mom Award goes to…)
  1. Share a window into your reality to those you wish were with you. After all, if they were with you, they would see the same thing — and remember what they find important. Stories
  2. Life is private, public, and personal when you choose. Direct messaging
  3. People love instant-gratification. Winning. And trophies. Gamification of memories through streaks
  4. People change, styles change, people love trying out different looks. It makes people feel invigorated. Filters
  5. Bonus: Connects to material environment through Snapchat Spectacles and user location map

Why environment design is working: Material environment and hypnotic suggestibility

Two years ago, I started a new career as the first person on a two person UX startup team at an enterprise company—Widen…

Event Experience

The experience was unforgettable. Before guests entered the conference, the atmosphere and energy of Vegas instilled a high level of excitement in everyone. When I arrived, I sensed a glow emanating from the people around me. This was not Chicago, San Francisco, or a tropical paradise. This was an educational event… yet it felt so right.

An environment influences emotions and behaviors through hypnotic suggestibility

The event was full of invaluable knowledge and opportunities. But what made the experience worth the large investment? Why pay thousands of dollars when you can learn from affordable sites like Udacity and Udemy? Is it the overall experience — the environment — that is appealing?

Try it for yourself — trigger an emotional appeal

Think about your favorite park.

The Psychology: How our environment affects us

An environment can:

  1. Influence behavior and motivation to act.
  2. Influence mood, stress, and perception.

The secret: A user interface, an app environment, has the same psychological effects on humans

The secret to the mega-giants success is their superior experience that supports emotional appeals and hypnotic suggestibility through clearly designed environment models. They have successfully modeled their environment to support the goals of their targeted users.

How can you design an environment model?

Your application has an environment model waiting to be discovered. But where do you start? For example purposes, I created a fictitious company and performed a mini-research study to present a simple process.

Environment Model Design: Picnic Perfect Research Study

Picnics can be a lot of fun (most of the time). It’s a social event that can build relationships, facilitate philosophical conversations, and boost creativity. And a fictitious app “Picnic Perfect” has a mission to help picnic lovers find the best spot to have a memorable picnic. But before they begin moving forward with development they want to make sure their app is on target and appealing in order to stand out from the competition.

  1. Why did you choose this park over the other?
  1. Map view (GPS enabled)
  2. Filter by mood
  3. Real-time park data for visibility in crowd level
  4. Recommended parks/activities based on user activity
  5. Connect with Spotify to recommend music based on mood and setting

Conclusion

Products are becoming more lifelike — extensions to daily life. Successful products, now, and in the future will utilize environment models. Because environment models set the stage for designing cross device experiences that blur the lines between the material and digital environments in order to trigger emotional appeal . Emotional appeal drives user adoption, engagement, and profitability.

Design an environment, create an experience, connect with your people.

Now that you’re familiar with human psychology and environment design, can you identify how your product can benefit from an environment model?


Feedback

I’d love to hear from you about this approach. If you’d like to have a conversation or share your viewpoints please reach out to me in the comments below — or through other channels like LinkedIn or my personal site ZackUX.


RUXERS

Real User Experience Leaders: Sharing and discussing the latest in user experience design, research, and philosophy.

Zack Gehin ☀️

Written by

UX and Design Leader - King of Cardio - Curious — ruxers.com — Denver.

RUXERS

RUXERS

Real User Experience Leaders: Sharing and discussing the latest in user experience design, research, and philosophy.

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