By Peter Ramsey

29 Oct 23

🦧

UX Concepts

Tribalism

Summary

People enjoy feeling connected.

👀

Introduction

Although the days of people mostly living in small hunter-gatherer groups are behind us, humans still crave a connected experience with other people.

Of course, there are literal and obvious tribes (e.g., religion, gangs, families), but consider that people who identify, and bond, over a specific thing can create a pseudo-tribe.

For example, a group of people who all love World of Warcraft, could be considered a tribe.

https://content.builtformars.com/uploads/images/Tribes.webp

Tribalism affects product design in many subtle ways, for instance:

  • Sharing in-jokes and references.
  • All competing for a common goal.
  • A level of understanding about each other's motives.

A simple way to think about tribalism, is that any reference, joke, content or feature that makes the user feel really understood, can mimic the connectedness of a tribe.

That’s theory, now learn about how to implement this.

BFM+

ÂŁ8/mo

For product builders

  • Impacts of Tribalism
  • Product tips (i.e., what you should do now)
  • Related UX bites for more examples