5 top tricks and tips: how to make digital emotional
Everything starts with an idea. But it’s the iterative design process that crafts them into something tangible. That process can often be rational, and driven by data. In his new course, Alex Lampe shows you that, by using emotion as a tool, we can interrogate an idea from different angles to reveal ways of addressing human needs. As a taster, he reveals his own tips for making memorable connections with audiences.
1. Use feeling as well as function.
Most connected products focus around features. But what good are features if they don’t fit into our lives? Use the emotions as your lense when thinking about ideas. What are the extremes? How can you change the intent of the same idea by thinking it through contrasting emotions?
2. Ask yourself the tough questions.
How would you like people to respond to your idea before you build it? What would a great review look like? What would a bad one reveal?
3. Role play.
To create a connected experience, think of each interaction like a scene in a movie. Each scene has a location, time, actors, props and events that are played out. All your scenes connect to one over-arching story.
4. Design systems, not pages.
Design systems not pages. A connected digital experience has to work in different contexts across different devices, each with their own constraints. Your idea needs to be articulated simply and consistently.
5. If at first you don’t succeed, iterate.
You will never design the perfect experience. Create something simple that demonstrates the idea. Fake it if you have to. It’s important to get the thing in the hands of your audience. Learn from the mistakes and try again until you get the ressonance you intend.
Creating connected, emotional digital experiences is about constructing narratives that join up to build a personal story for the individual. Discover how to apply that very thinking to your own work with Alex’s ‘Creating Emotion in Digital Experiences’ session.
