Think about the last time you bought something you did not necessarily need. Maybe it was a coffee from your favorite café, a candle from a brand you love, or a product that simply looked too good to leave behind. What made you choose that specific product?
Sometimes, the answer is not the product itself. It is how the product made you feel.
This is where the experience economy comes into play. Businesses are no longer competing only on the quality or price of what they sell. They are also competing on the experience surrounding the product. Design can turn an ordinary purchase into something emotional, memorable, and personal.
Design Is More Than What We See
When we think about design, we often focus on appearance. We notice the colors, fonts, photographs, packaging, or shape of a product. However, design is much bigger than how something looks.
Ellen Lupton explains in Design Is Storytelling that people experience design across time. Design is not just one moment when someone sees a product. It is a series of interactions that happen as someone discovers, uses, and remembers it.
Think about opening a package. You first notice the colors and graphics. Then you interact with the packaging and figure out how to open it. Finally, you use the product and decide how you feel about the experience. Each step shapes your overall impression of the brand.
Even small design choices can have a big impact. A color can create excitement, a photograph can create curiosity, and the way a product feels in your hands can make the experience more satisfying. Design is constantly communicating, even without words.
First, Make It Work. Then Make It Feel Good.
Of course, emotional design cannot fix a product that does not work. Aarron Walter’s Designing for Emotion presents a hierarchy where functionality, reliability, and usability come before pleasure.
If a website is confusing, a package is impossible to open, or a product does not work properly, beautiful design can only go so far. A product must first meet basic needs.
Once those needs are met, personality and emotion can make the experience feel more human.
Two products can provide almost the exact same function, but the one that creates a stronger emotional experience may be the one customers remember. Design can communicate personality, create excitement, or make someone feel comfortable before they even use the product.
In the experience economy, customers are not just asking, “Does this work?” They are also asking, “How does this make me feel?”
Why Emotions Matter
Don Norman’s three levels of emotional design help explain why some products become more memorable than others.
The visceral level is our immediate reaction to appearance. Color, shape, photography, and typography can make something feel luxurious, playful, comforting, or exciting before we even interact with it.
The behavioral level focuses on how well the design works. Is the website easy to navigate? Is the packaging understandable? Does the product feel good to use? A product can look amazing, but it still needs to provide a positive experience.
Finally, there is the reflective level, where a product can become personally meaningful. This can involve memories, identity, values, or the way someone wants to see themselves.
We might first notice a product because it looks appealing, continue using it because it works well, and eventually become attached to it because of what it represents.
Turning Coffee Into a Ritual
Nespresso is a great example of how design can turn a simple product into an experience. Coffee itself is nothing new. What Nespresso does is carefully design everything surrounding it.
From the machines to the presentation of its capsules, the brand creates a sense of sophistication and ritual. Instead of simply thinking, “I need coffee,” the experience can become something more intentional: choosing a capsule, preparing the machine, watching the coffee pour, and enjoying the finished drink.
The coffee is the physical product, but the ritual surrounding it creates additional emotional value.
The same idea applies to many everyday products. A candle can become part of someone’s nighttime routine. A pair of sneakers can represent an athletic identity. A favorite restaurant can become connected to birthdays or family traditions.
The physical product may be what we buy, but the emotions and memories around it can make us loyal.
We Remember Stories, Not Just Products
Storytelling is another important part of emotional design. People naturally connect with stories because stories give products meaning.
A brand’s history, personality, challenges, and vision can make customers feel connected to something bigger than a purchase. This also connects back to Lupton’s idea that design works across time. The experience does not necessarily end when someone leaves a store or closes a website. The memory of that experience can continue.
Think about a product you received as a gift. The object itself may not be expensive, but you might still keep it because of who gave it to you or the memory attached to it. Its emotional value has become greater than its physical value.
Brands can create similar connections by sharing their stories and giving customers something to connect with beyond the product itself.
The Experience Becomes the Value
At the end of the day, good design is not just about making something look attractive. It is about thinking through the entire experience and understanding how each design decision affects the person using it.
A successful product needs to function and be usable. But when design also creates an emotional connection, the product can become more than that.
The experience economy shows us that people are often willing to pay for more than what a product physically provides. They are paying for convenience, personality, memories, excitement, comfort, and connection.
So the next time you choose one product over another, ask yourself why. Is it really the product you are choosing, or is it the experience surrounding it?
Sometimes, what we buy isn’t what we take home. It is how the design makes us feel while we are there.
References
Don Norman: 3 ways good design makes you happy | TED Talk
(1) Designing For Emotion (Aarron Walter) – YouTube
The Power Of Emotional Design In Product Design | i-mas
Lupton, Ellen. Design Is Storytelling. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2017