In life, you first feel, and then you sense.
You first taste, and then you sense what the taste is about.
You first see, and then you make sense of what you see.
You first get hurt, and then you make sense of what happened.
We rarely experience the world as detached observers. We encounter it first—and only afterwards begin to understand, interpret, categorise and give meaning to what we have experienced.
So what happens when we enter a designed environment?
Perhaps we do not understand the design first.
Perhaps we feel it.
Value of Emotions in Design Experience
Like with anything in this world, we aim for the long-term relationship.
The bright foundation for such a relationship is the right emotion, supported by the right feeling. Without it, we may compensate with discussions, extra arrangements and multiple strategies—but these rarely create the desired result in the long run.
If we go back to my article 6 Levels of User Experience, the two final levels—Pleasurability and Meaningfulness—cannot exist without the first four: Functionality, Reliability, Usability and Convenience. They build the foundation of the experience.
In this article, however, I want to turn the perspective around.
The first four layers may make an experience work, but they make less sense on their own. Their value is ultimately shaped by what the experience makes us feel and what meaning we attach to it.
A product can function perfectly, be reliable, easy to use and highly convenient—and still create the wrong feeling.
And when that happens, the foundation may be solid, but the relationship is not.
A Look Beyond Design
Our decision-making can be influenced by bodily and emotional signals through both conscious and non-conscious processes, as described in Antonio Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis. This provides an interesting scientific perspective on why feelings can sometimes influence our decisions alongside, or even before, conscious reasoning. It also highlights the importance of Pleasurability and Meaningfulness in design.
In her Theory of Constructed Emotion, Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that emotions are not simply pre-programmed reactions to particular stimuli. Instead, emotional experiences emerge through processes involving interoception, categorisation and prediction. This points towards an important aspect of our human individuality: we do not necessarily experience the same thing in the same way.
Emotional abuse is a powerful example of this. People can respond to similar experiences in remarkably different ways, depending on their previous experiences, expectations and perceptions. Presumably, the same design will not evoke exactly the same emotional response in every human being either. What feels reassuring to one person may feel intrusive to another; what feels exciting to one may feel overwhelming to someone else.
Our affective responses can be powerful enough to operate outside conscious awareness. Paula Niedenthal's research on implicit perception of affective information has demonstrated that people can process affective information even when the stimulus is not consciously detectable. This distinction between conscious feeling and affective processing outside conscious awareness makes the emotional dimension of design even more interesting—and places an additional responsibility on Pleasurability and Meaningfulness.
Don Norman describes three levels of emotional response in design: visceral, referring to our immediate response; behavioural, relating to the experience of using something; and reflective, concerning the meaning we attach to it over time. His framework is particularly relevant here because emotional responses do not necessarily end when the interaction ends. Research on emotional design has also suggested that emotional responses can contribute to longer-term relationships between people and products, rather than simply producing momentary pleasure.
How Do Our Feelings Transcend 6 Levels of User Experience?
Could it be that our feelings while using design artefacts move through all six layers of User Experience?
Pleasurability and Meaningfulness are the layers most obviously associated with our emotional responses. Yet the first four layers—Functionality, Reliability, Usability and Convenience—can also create feelings, even though we often take them for granted once they are present.
Functionality can create confidence when something simply works. Reliability can create trust. Usability can create ease and a sense of control. Convenience can make an experience feel effortless.
And the opposite is equally true.
When something does not function, we can become frustrated. When it repeatedly fails, we can lose trust. When it is difficult to use, we can feel inadequate or irritated. When a supposedly convenient solution creates additional effort, we can feel disappointed.
Perhaps, then, the six layers are not simply a ladder that we climb from functionality towards meaningfulness. Our feelings accompany us all the way through.
The first four layers create the foundation of the experience. The last two give that experience pleasure and meaning. But all six can influence how we feel—and therefore how we ultimately experience what has been designed for us.
How to Charge the Product with the Right Emotional Response
The only solid answer is to meet your real users and potential or existing customers—and that means doing the user research.
We can make assumptions about what people will find reassuring, exciting, convenient or meaningful, but our assumptions remain just that: assumptions. The people who actually use or consider using our products and services are the ones who can tell us what they experience and why.
In my article Add Comfort, Commodity and Emotional Happiness to Your Products and Services, I explore how to turn functional products into emotionally rewarding experiences your customers truly love—through strong product strategy, thoughtful experience design and effective UX practices.
Conclusion
Perhaps this is what makes designing for human beings so different from designing for functions.
We can make a product work. We can make it reliable, usable and convenient. We can make every interaction carefully considered and every feature perfectly aligned with a requirement. Yet none of this guarantees that people will want to stay with it.
Because somewhere between encountering something and understanding it, we feel it.
We may feel reassured before we can explain why. We may feel uncomfortable before we can identify what caused it. We may feel attracted, curious, irritated or connected before our rational mind has had the opportunity to formulate an opinion.
This is why feelings cannot simply be added to design at the end. They are already travelling through the experience.
The six levels of User Experience provide a foundation, but the human response transcends them. Functionality, Reliability, Usability and Convenience make an experience possible. Pleasurability and Meaningfulness can make it desirable and worthwhile. Yet all six can contribute to what we ultimately feel.
And perhaps this is where good design becomes less about creating a particular emotion and more about creating the conditions for the right experience.
Because we cannot prescribe how every human being will feel. We can only listen, observe, understand and design with greater awareness of the people who will encounter what we create.
In the end, the products and services we keep are rarely those that merely do what they are supposed to do.
They are the ones with which we develop a relationship.
The foundation may make the experience work.
The feeling may make us want to stay.
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