71 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
71 lines
3.6 KiB
Markdown
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> **Additional context needed**: the brand's emotional range.
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Make the experience memorable at moments that earn it. Delight is not a layer of generic whimsy; it is product character revealed through a useful interaction, a humane response, or an unexpectedly considered detail.
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---
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## Visitor mode
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- **Persuade + Experience:** personality may run through voice, composition, motion, and discovery, provided the artifact remains the focus.
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- **Operate + Read:** concentrate delight at meaningful moments such as first use, completion, recovery, or mastery. Reliability carries everything else.
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## Find the opportunity
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Inspect the target, DESIGN.md, product voice, repeated-use frequency, and emotional context. Look for:
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- effort worth acknowledging;
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- waiting that can become informative;
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- an empty or first-use state that can orient;
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- an error or recovery moment that needs empathy;
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- an interaction whose physical or verbal response could express the brand;
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- a useful capability people might enjoy discovering.
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Do not manufacture a celebration for an ordinary click. Ask only when the brand's emotional range or the stakes cannot be inferred.
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## Define one delight thesis
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State in one sentence what the user should feel and why that feeling belongs to this product. Then choose the smallest system that can deliver it:
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- a distinctive response to a meaningful action;
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- product-specific language that clarifies while carrying voice;
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- an interaction or transition with a recognizable material behavior;
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- an illustration, sound, haptic, or environmental detail grounded in the product world;
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- a discovery reward that reveals real utility.
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Derive the treatment from product mechanism and visual world, not a stock catalog.
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## Build for the emotional moment
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- **Success:** match the response to the effort and consequence. Major milestones can expand; routine saves should simply feel certain.
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- **Waiting:** show truthful progress, useful context, or product-specific activity. Never fake work or delay completion to stage a flourish.
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- **Empty and first use:** make the next action clear before adding personality.
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- **Error and recovery:** lead with the problem and recovery. Warmth may reduce stress; jokes must not trivialize loss, money, privacy, or blocked work.
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- **Repeated interaction:** keep the response satisfying after the hundredth use. Variation is useful only when it remains coherent and predictable enough to trust.
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- **Discovery:** reward curiosity without hiding required functionality.
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Copy must use the product's language. Generic whimsy is worse than neutral clarity.
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## Protect the experience
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Delight must not:
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- delay, block, or obscure the primary task;
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- override platform conventions or accessibility;
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- add unrequested factual claims;
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- play sound without consent or ignore mute settings;
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- become mandatory, unskippable, or exhausting on repeat;
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- add a dependency or asset cost disproportionate to the moment.
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For authored motion, load [animate.md](animate.md). Respect screen readers, keyboard use, touch, localization, and cultural context. Nonessential loops stop when hidden. Make celebration intensity proportional to frequency and consequence.
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## Verify
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- The moment is specific enough that a neighboring product could not use it unchanged.
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- It improves comprehension, confidence, motivation, or emotional recovery.
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- The interface remains fast and obvious without the flourish.
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- Repetition does not turn charm into friction.
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- Muted, keyboard, touch, and localized paths work.
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- The result feels like the selected world, not a generic “delight” treatment.
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When the personality feels earned, hand off to `/impeccable polish` for the final pass.
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