What Is Delight?

To celebrate our first podcast milestone, we flipped the script. NN/g UX Specialist Rachel Krause guest-hosts this episode, and interviews host Therese Fessenden about the concept of "delight" in user experience: what it is, why the pursuit of delight can often be a short-sighted and misunderstood endeavor, and how a more holistic approach to interpreting and anticipating user needs can more reliably lead to an experience that delights beyond a single interaction.

Read more about the hosts: 

• Therese Fessenden's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio)
• Rachel Krause's Articles & Videos (NN/g bio)

Free resources cited in this episode:

• A Theory of User Delight: Why Usability Is the Foundation for Delightful Experiences (free article)
• Design for Emotion (by Daniel Ruston, UX Lead at Google Design)
• Principles of Emotional Design (Intuit case study by Garron Engstrom)
• How Delightful! 4 Principles for Designing Experience-Centric Products (Autodesk MLP case study by Maria Giudice)
• Research: Perspective-Taking Doesn’t Help You Understand What Others Want (HBR article by Tal Eyal, Mary Steffel, Nicholas Epley)
• Harvard Psychiatrist Identifies 7 Skills to Help You Get Along With Anybody (Inc. article by Carmine Gallo about Helen Riess' work)

Other resources cited in this episode:

• Emerging Patterns in Interface Design (UX Certification course)
• Persuasive and Emotional Design (UX Certification course)
• DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and User Research (UX Certification course)
• Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter (book)