The True Value of User Delight

"I had an idea to animate this button so that it explodes into tiny pieces. It'll only take a day or so, I think. I've never done it before".

"Maybe later."

To be clear, a lot of the time 😍 User Delight is a massive distraction.

But not always.

When used intentionally, these touches can:

• Retain attention to reduce churn
• Celebrate moments to encourage habits
• Set a tone to improve conversion rates
• Create a moment to be shared or talked about
• Replace traditional onboarding

In this Cheatsheet, I've framed different approaches to user delight, in 7 very tangible benefits.

They overlap, and most examples fall into many categories.

But I hope it at least gives you a more structured way of framing your next "crazy" idea.

While asking you to opt in to receive offers, the Lego store shows a toy megaphone that if you tap, will shoot out Lego bricks.

The value here is that an interesting moment gains attention.

Compare it to a "more boring" alternative below (left)

You'll see the wall of text and switch off.

In this instance, Lego aren't directly increasing purchases. 

They're just retaining attention—which is useful for whatever comes next.

Another great example is the weather app Carrot.

The app homepage starts out as an empty animated garden, and a promise that it'll grow over time.

You want to see what the next stage is. 

It objectively does nothing except create interest.

And interest (or attention) can be leveraged in a number of ways.

One of the most obvious uses of 'delight', is to emphasise a moment.

In other words: to make a moment more celebratory.

For example, after completing your last to do item for that day, TickTick will turn that row into a celebratory banner.

This micro dose of celebration could help create stickier habits.

It certainly makes completing an action more satisfying.

Or, during certain sporting events, Google will show celebratory animations like this.

It creates a moment out of a data point.

After ordering on Uber Eats, you get to watch your driver trundle towards you on a scooter.

And if you look closely, they cast an animated shadow on the ground.

When ordering a coffee on Philz coffee, you'll see who's actually making your order.

It sets a tone of being personalised. A human touch.

Or, when typing your password on ReadMe, the owl will animate to cover their eyes.

This tells you that the experience will be playful and friendly.

They're small cues that create a tone. 

It can make an app feel inviting, professional, productive, secure, fun, cheap or premium.

It's hard to actually reduce waiting times with UX (there's a whole Cheatsheet about loading and waiting if you're interested).

But, you can absolutely make people happier waiting, or reduce the perception of time.

While placing an order, the Lego store will reveal a series of Lego heads lighting up. 

It's a combination of User Delight and the 🧩 Curiosity Gap.

Or, while waiting for Fitness+ to personalise your workout recommendations, the loading animation shows a stick figure running across the screen.

It's an animation that objectively does nothing.

But it gives you something to watch for a few seconds. 

That's it. That's what it does.

Sometimes, User Delight simply makes an experience more memorable, or more likely to be shared and talked about.

These can be relatively small things.

For example, on the iOS app, Spotify will show a sparkle inside the playbar for Taylor Swift songs.

But they're often much more complicated.

Particularly for features that most people won't have even noticed.

Or that Instagram have built a working 'Pong' mini game into their private DMs.

(Tapping on an emoji in an Instagram chat will trigger this game).

What's the long term value of this? 

There really isn't one, other than being memorable and creating something for people to tell their friends about. It's working, because I'm telling you.

User Delight can be used to encourage immediate action.

For example, on the app Clear, you can pull up to clear completed items from your to-do list.

When you do, the letters start jiggling and eventually explode over your screen.

The first time you do this, you'll be impressed.

Then you'll try it again, and it'll be slightly different. The variability is addictive.

Imagine plotting these actions on a chart of retention.

This moment of User Delight is likely to increase the number of actions a new user does in the first few days.

(Because they want to see the next animation).

e.g., instead of the average number of tasks cleared being say, 1, it might be 3.

This doesn't mean that they're automatically going to be better long term users.

But if you think on a step-by-step basis, you've retained their attention a little bit more, and increased short term engagement.

You can now build on that.

How could Arc browser tell you that their incognito mode is more private?

They could tell you in words. They could show a pop-up or a splash screen.

It's non-verbal onboarding.

This kind of "see, look over here" onboarding is everywhere.

When adding an item into your basket on Shop, you'll see that item animate and fly into the specific menu tab.

Yes, it's a satisfying animation.

But it also literally shows you where your basket is.

In general, Built for Mars champions predictable techniques, reliable improvements that you can measure and fixing very tangible things that annoy users.

Building 😍 User Delight is none of these.

But, there is still a place for it.

Typically something like 5%, and often during hackathons or Friday afternoons.

This cheatsheet should help you frame the value of that 5%.