On Delightful Software Experiences
I'm a product owner who works daily with software teams trying to release something meaningful. This gives me a little different perspective when looking at software products that I use. I just ask myself questions like What did they think of when they released that feature? .. Who's that crazy genius who wrote these release notes? .. and sometimes "Whatever an idiot can come up with would be more useful than this feature!"
As any software you have the must-have, should-have, could-have and the won't-have features. A good balance between those would give you an opportunity to touch the user. AND if the user loves what you built, they probably will keep using it.
Sometimes it's a really simple element displayed on the screen that turns a bad experience into something that takes your attention and makes you feel a bit delighted. Error screens, bug fixes announced in release notes, whatever communication from your brand to the user.. you've the opportunity to touch them and leave a positive impact.
Below, I'll be listing a few examples about software experiences that left an impression on me.
Slack Release Notes
I'm a fan of Slack as a software that makes life easier every single day I need to communicate with my team. BUT one of the most interesting things about Slack for me is their release notes.. it's remarkable.
What makes it remarkable in my opinion is the awesome mix between educating the users about the features and being funny about bug fixes. Sometime it just cracks me up, honestly! .. Like the below ones I got from a friend before.
This is remarkable. They really made release notes an interesting thing to read, instead of the infamous "Bug fixes and improvements" line.
Skype Connection Error
Although it's annoying that Skype did not connect, it's still good to see one of the coolest Skype features in the error screen. What's that? The animated emoticon. Crying for not being able to connect me, it just subconsciously made me feel empathy and that they care about me as a user who should be having a good experience.
Medium's "minutes to read"
The rarest currency nowadays is attention. Yet time remains a scarce resource that we don't like to spend on things that we don't enjoy/benefit from (cause not everything useful is joyful, and vice versa). It sounds smart and caring about my time as a user. Not to mention that the auto save feature in Medium is a bliss for me as a blogger.
Siri, and being correct VS technically correct
I recall a blog post by Jason Fried about his experience with Siri, a few years ago. It's one of the most interesting experiences actually that makes me think "How could they think of it?!"
For me as a user, I would just get delighted and think that Siri is really smart to ask me that question. Salutes to the product team who thought of such a case!
On the other hand
Some softwares are just stupid. A few examples that I've experienced:
- A website that tells me that maximum attachment size is 1048576 bytes. WHT?! .. There's an invention called 1MB out there for a while, guys.
- A website that clears all fields if one field doesn't match the expected criteria
- A website that has a rule for creating passwords and lets me set the password incorrectly then shows me an error
- An app for people with visual impairment that doesn't work unless you've accessibility enabled on your phone, and doesn't have any welcome message that tells you about needing this for the app to function correctly
- Any software built to satisfy managers instead of users.
I hope that whatever we work on contains delightful experiences and makes the user's day better. And I also hope that we won't turn into stupid people who make users wonder "Why did they make such a stupid feature?" .. and I definitely hope that you found this post interesting ;)
Do you have an interesting delightful experience that you'd like to share? .. Please check the comments feature here and use it for that specific purpose ;)
