It’s Time To Dump “Delight”
We in digital design and user experience should retire words that no longer describe our products’ goals or their service to our users.
The Problem With Delight
Why do we have an affinity for the word delight? This may be one of the most frequently used words that we in product design and development use to describe digital experiences — present company included. When asked for a show of hands for who has used delight on a résumé, blog post or project description, does your hand go up? Mine certainly does.
While delight may be appropriate for some digital experiences, such as videos, games and social media, it seems to have become a goal for all digital products. What does delight have to do with websites, mobile apps and connected devices? Is it important for digital tools to delight our users, or is that simply a catchier way to describe the user experience? As we try to describe the value of the products we create, I’d make the case that we’re doing it wrong.
We work to create thoughtful, user-centered products that will serve a need. But when we describe a product as delightful, we underplay the complicated process of developing an intuitive user experience.
Through user research and testing, we can see that users assign worth to good tools, and users appreciate a product that delivers what is expected. Yet we still see a need to dust our digital products with icing sugar, and this takes time away from more important requirements — ease of use, consistent performance, streamlined function and the value of utility. Products don’t need to delight users; they just need to work.
I believe we use delight as a proxy for a number of things:
- Functioning well
- Providing utility
- Doing what the user expects
- Performing quickly and consistently
- Easing the user journey
- Simplifying processes or steps
- Providing relevant information
- Understanding the user’s context
- Acknowledging the user’s habits
- Complementing an experience in real life
If we can take the time to better explain our contributions to the user experience and why those matter, we can avoid buzzwords that do nothing to explain a product’s utility to our users.
How We Got Here
I suspect the early days of the Internet have a little something to do with that. Back when web pages were babies, there weren’t many options for formatting, design or other bells and whistles. Pages and sites were fairly utilitarian. But as we became more familiar with code and web-adjacent tools, we also got clever and cute with layouts, styling and widgets.
Consider the first time you saw a website open with an animated Flash intro, or an early app that used skeuomorphism to make digital elements look real, or icons that replaced words to convey meaning. These were likely intended to delight an audience that simply came for a tool or information (see also: every restaurant website, ever.)
I remember beta testing the desktop publishing tool QuarkXPress. Mashing a certain combination of keys summoned an alien who marched onto the screen to delete a text box. In Photoshop, there were variations of the big electric cat to see while clicking the about button. Were these delightful? Sure. Did they help me finish tasks? Nope.
These are just a couple examples of digital products that went from basic to extra, zooming past usable or utilitarian. At the time, I suspect designers and developers categorized these improvements as delight because, hey, look what technology can do!
Delight Is Inappropriate
We now have a much more expansive understanding of the capabilities of technology. Claiming delight as a benefit of our products is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible — our products are services that people depend upon, not a handful of gumballs.
Now that digital products have become more ingrained in our day-to-day productivity, delight is less important to what matters: that our products function as our users expect.
Imagine these scenarios, with sprinkles on top:
- A user’s debit card was just stolen, and they navigate the bank’s app to put a hold on the account. Delightful!
- A user’s flight was cancelled, and they work through the airline’s website to book a new flight. Magical!
- A user needs to complete forms online by a certain deadline in order to sign up for a service. Enchanting!
- A user is anxious to get live news through their smart speaker but has to first say a news or radio source. Adorable!
- A user has to rush to reach a family member in an unfamiliar neighborhood and quickly needs directions. Heavenly!
These are cases where the product simply needs to function correctly. And if delight means “functioning correctly,” then I guess we’re delighting our users. However, that word-choice absolutely undersells what our products can do, and the high standard to which our users should expect quality-assured products.
If a user thinks, “Wow, I can’t believe that worked on the first try,” then we have set low standards for usability, and therefore have bigger fish to fry than managing delight. We need to foster an expectation of usability and functionality that empowers our users to engage in our products with confidence.
Libby Bawcombe works in user experience and design for NPR’s digital platforms. Read more on NPR’s Design blog.
