Once deep behavioral insights have been uncovered, the central challenge shifts from knowing what to build to ensuring the development team builds it with the right spirit and soul. Joe McQuaid, planning the LiveWell app launch, realized that features alone would be insufficient; the product needed a specific sensibility to succeed. This sensibility is formalized through the design strategy, a long-term plan focused on taming technology and realizing the product’s value proposition.
Formalizing the Human Promise
The design strategy provides the lens—like business or technology strategy—that ensures product decisions support the emotional narrative of use. The foundation of this strategy is the Emotional Value Proposition (EVP). Whereas the utilitarian value proposition describes what a user can do after acquiring the product (e.g., “find information”), the EVP defines what the user will feel (e.g., “feel more connected” or “in control”). The EVP serves as the primary “North Star,” providing the unifying goal around which the entire team can rally, constantly answering the question, “Why are we doing the things we’re doing?”.
Defines what users will feel, guiding product decisions beyond functionality
Product Stance: Designing the Product’s Personality
The EVP leads directly to defining the Product Stance, a highly subjective quality representing the product’s personality or attitude. Stance is engineered to capitalize on anthropomorphism; users naturally assign human characteristics to inanimate digital products. To define this stance, designers identify aspirational emotional traits—such as supportive, lighthearted, or coy—and imagine the product as a person. These traits are then translated into Emotional Requirements, declarative statements that dictate and constrain every subsequent product decision. Mike Kruzeniski describes these requirements as the product’s “soul,” the minimal combination of what the product does, how it behaves, and its form, which cannot be eliminated. For LiveWell, the stance demanded the product converse in “chatty, natural, conversational language” and “always be affirming”.
Leveraging Analogy to Make Experiential Leaps
A powerful mechanism for generating product ideas and interactions that support the desired stance is examining analogous emotional experiences. If a PM is working on a health management product with the goal to “safely treat a disease” (a long, slow process), they can identify the underlying human interactions: remembering daily tasks, feeling confident in progress, and having infrequent check-ins with professionals. The PM then finds a comparable, non-related analogy, such as training for a marathon, which shares these emotional and functional attributes. By examining the artifacts used in marathon training—calendars, tracking devices, magazines—the PM generates ideas (like digital coaching or inspirational narratives) that can be liberally repurposed for the health product. This method, which leverages the brain’s ability to analogize across patterns, requires the PM to possess a broad worldview and seek out concepts removed from their standard domain.
When Design Intentionally Rejects Utility
A strong product stance often requires non-utilitarian design decisions that purposefully enhance emotional appeal. MailChimp, for instance, exhibits a playful stance through whimsical design choices, such as the pop-up window where the mascot’s arms fall off if the screen is stretched too far. These nonessential details create a rich, resonant interaction for the user. This strategic “play” intentionally frames the product in a specific way, asking it to act with consistency. When the product’s stance is credible, the aspirational emotional traits transfer to the user, who becomes “more playful, provocative, and unexpected” by engaging with the designed experience. This designed character becomes the arbiter of arguments and the structure of personality for an otherwise inanimate object.