Rahul Vohra: belief

Transcript context

…If I could extrapolate this for founders out there who are listening, product designers, or product managers who want to work this into their own product, is it basically find the opportunities where your product naturally delights someone or naturally makes someone feel a sense of accomplishment and find the light-touch ways to just amplify that? Yes, and zooming out if what we're trying to do is tie this up into a message for product designers or product managers. I would say this, as an industry—and I was taught this way as well—we were brought up to obsess over what users want or over what users need. But if you think about a game, no one needs a game. There are no requirements other than be fun. I would advise, as an industry, to pull back from this obsession with user wants and user needs and instead to design for fun. What you want your players to feel, what is the emotional path for them to get there, and how does your software—your business product, if that's what you're building—take them along the path? That's why one of the key principles that we think about at Superhuman isn't just goals, it isn't just toys, it isn't just flow, but it's also emotions. How can you design for the emotions that you want your users to feel? This is another area where I've gone really deep. There are literally countless emotions. We get really nuanced at Superhuman. Is it inspiration, triumph, longing, peacefulness, tranquility, or sentimentality? There are so many different things people could feel. How are you designing a journey so that people actually feel them? Two quick things, one, it feels like it's also an omen of disrespecting your users too and their intelligence, right? The gamification style feels like a low respect for your users. I'm going to give you some flashy star doing this thing, good job. It's like you're treating them like those elementary school kids. Whereas, give them awesome tools and then trust that they know their goals. If their goals line up with your goals, they're going to use them well. Just let them discover. It’s like trusting them, right?…

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