A single question often lingers throughout any design process: will it work? Often, the short answer is simply – "No." The long answer? "Noooo!" Dissatisfied, we ponder potential improvements in a search for groundbreaking solutions. We turn to bold overarching schemes, 5-year strategies, time-consuming workshops, sprawling customer journey maps or the obvious almighty cure-all of "Do your research!"... but perhaps the answer is so simple it seems insignificant.
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At WaysConf 2023, Wojtek Dziedzic, Senior Product Designer at Brainly, presents strategies for shaping user behavior and choices through intentional experience design. Drawing lessons from a museum visit in Barcelona, athletic achievements like Roger Bannister's sub-four-minute mile, and product work at Brainly, Dziedzic demonstrates how human memory prioritizes peak emotional moments and final outcomes over average details. He argues that digital products frequently fail by cluttering interfaces with long feature lists and generic visual tropes, causing user engagement to fade. Instead, designers should focus on key milestones and break predictable interaction scripts to build habits and strong emotional connections. Dziedzic illustrates this approach through practical product examples, including Fitbit's contextual achievement badges and Brainly's personalized gratitude stickers, which transform mundane interactions into memorable human connections.
Users evaluate digital products based on peak emotional moments and final interactions rather than average feature utility. Designing around key emotional milestones ensures products remain memorable amid digital clutter.
Watch from 3:15Products succeed when they become automatic responses to specific user needs or habits instead of promoting exhaustive feature sets. Simplifying value propositions helps users immediately recognize how a service solves their core problem.
Watch from 4:40People exert extra effort when approaching clear, symbolic milestones, as seen in marathon finishes and historical athletic records. Product designers can use well-timed achievement markers to motivate continuous user progress.
Watch from 10:13Overusing predictable interaction patterns and corporate visual tropes can make digital products feel generic and uninspiring. Introducing surprising, contextual elements breaks standard scripts and strengthens brand perception.
Watch from 14:55Small UI enhancements, like custom expressive stickers for thanking peers, turn transactional features into memorable social moments. Humanizing peer interaction deepens user retention and strengthens community bonds.
Watch from 18:39These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
Reflecting on a visit to the Design Museum of Barcelona, the speaker observed that an unexpected graffiti incident outside was far more memorable than the curated exhibits inside. This real-world situation mirrors the psychological Peak-End Rule, which dictates that people evaluate experiences based on high emotional peaks and final outcomes rather than an average sum of details. In digital products, where users face constant promotional banners and notifications, most features fade into a blur. Designers should focus on crafting distinct peak moments that leave lasting positive impressions rather than overwhelming users with continuous noise.
Watch from 3:15Users rarely fall in love with products because of long feature lists; instead, they rely on habits and emotional triggers to solve immediate problems. When individuals want to learn or ask questions, they turn to platforms like Brainly or Google because these brands have successfully anchored themselves to specific user needs. Evaluating an app by identifying the one or two moments where it became indispensable reveals that broad feature sets matter far less than clear core utility. Simplifying the visual messaging and highlighting direct benefits helps users grasp value immediately.
Watch from 4:40Data from marathon race finishes demonstrates a pronounced spike in runners completing their races just under major time thresholds, such as sub-three or sub-four hour marks. Even after running 40 kilometers, athletes find a final surge of energy to beat an arbitrary clock deadline. This psychological phenomenon was similarly displayed in 1954 when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier, an achievement long deemed physically impossible that was quickly repeated by others once the mental threshold was crossed. Designers can apply this principle to guide user behavior by creating meaningful milestone targets.
Watch from 10:13While consistency offers comfort, relying strictly on standard conventions can lead to fatigue, as seen in the widespread fatigue surrounding corporate visual art styles across digital platforms. Fitness applications like Fitbit successfully break routine scripts by framing achievements with unexpected, tangible references, such as awarding a badge for walking the equivalent distance of the Sahara Desert. Providing users with surprising, physical representations of their achievements transforms routine tracking into moments of genuine pride and delight.
Watch from 14:55Brainly replaced a standard, generic gratitude button with a personalized thank-you feature that offers users custom illustrated stickers and playful puns. While a simple button press often feels isolated and forgettable, sending an expressive sticker turns a routine interaction into a genuine moment of human connection between students. This minor visual detail enhances user retention, reinforces a lighthearted brand identity for younger audiences, and makes online interactions feel significantly more meaningful than traditional classroom grading symbols.
Watch from 18:39
