The Experience Stack
Here’s one, from page 93. Notable positive emotions in interpersonal relationships:
- Schadenfreude, the gloating feeling you get when a rival fails at something. This is, in essence, a put down.
- Fiero, the expression of triumph when you have achieved a significant task (pumping your first, for example). This is a signal to others that you are valuable.
- Naches, the feeling you get when someone you mentor succeeds. This is a clear feedback mechanism for tribal continuance.
- Kvell, the emotion you feel when bragging about someone you mentor. This is also a signal that you are valuable.
- Grooming behaviors, a signal of intimacy often representing relative social status.
- Feeding other people, which is a very important social signal in human societies.
[direct quote from Koster’s A Theory of Fun]
Oh, and fun of course.
What I like about this list in particular is that it’s a palette of experiences. I can look at every use I want to positively reinforce in my product or website or system, and make sure I’ve painted it with one of these emotions.
How about this as a thought experiment:
I often lose my TV remote control and find it after a few minute’s hunting. The only reward is that I get to change channel. Could this annoying experience be made more pleasurable by using one of these positive emotions?
Question 1. How would I design a TV remote control to provoke each of these emotions when discovered?
Question 2. What would the consequence of that be?
In the notes for this talk, I’ve put a sample solution to what a TV remote that worked with ‘naches’ would do. I don’t think we have time to discuss it right now, so you can read about it later.
Moving on.
[For example, a TV remote that ended with with ‘naches’ would require me to mentor someone. I choose to make this someone a puppy. I push a button on the side of the TV and it goes into remote finding mode, and shows a dog on the screen. I walk around the room and whistle. As I whistle, the dog on the screen runs about. The remote has a microphone in it. When it can hear me whistling, the dog on the screen gets more excited. As I get closer, the dog jumps around. Obviously the remote and TV have to be in radio communication for this to work. When the remote can hear me whistling loud enough, it beeps, and the dog goes berserk because it’s found the remote. My hunting behaviour has been acting out through the cartoon, and I feel good because it of. What are the consequences? I might hide the remote so other people can have a go at finding it, and maybe discover other things in the process. More pragmatically, it means two-way radio communication between the TV and the remote, and that leads us to smarter objects. Maybe a remote that I carry round the house that flashes when a programme I want to watch is starting. Or TVs with Bluetooth that communicate directly with my phone. And that leads me to think about a TV that uses voice recognition, treating the phone as a Bluetooth microphone headset.]