The colleague who always runs late for your meetings annoys you.
The neighbour playing his music too loud every night just drives you nuts.

The friend who gets freshly baked cookies for you to office probably has your adoration.
She offered to drop you home after you tried very hard to book a cab. You now trust her.

You are shopping for clothes with Anise. She compliments on everything you try out. It looked like all she was interested in doing was to leave. Do you like Anise?
Fin, who sits opposite to your desk seems to be always busier cracking jokes than working. In the beginning it was entertaining, but now just seems a waste of time. Do you still like Fin?
Ursula said she would pick you up in 10 minutes. You are dressed and waiting at your gate. You crane your neck to see if you recognise the incoming car. It has already been 20 minutes. You try calling her but she’s already busy on another call. Do you feel happy?

Do you like Anise, Fin and Ursula?

Why?

Here’s what I think.

Anise is usually nice, always offering to go shopping. But she recommends too many clothes and always wants me to try them out. I usually like her, but sometimes I don't.
When Fin came around, he was charming, nice and entertaining. Everyone in office used to flock around treating his desk as the water cooler. I used to like him, but now the wastage of time and focus makes it not worth it.
Ursula is very quick to volunteer he services when it comes to driving someone. But if she has told you she will be there in 5, you should know not to get down before 20. I like Ursula but her unreliability drives me crazy.

Anise, Fin, and Ursula are no different than Amazon, Facebook and Uber.

Products have personalities too. Products aren't that much unlike you and I.

And it is as important for a Product.

Humans we do not pay for, but Products we do.
Humans we do not substitute because it annoys us, we replace Products all the time.

I fell for my husband because he was honest and caring. Most of my close friends are mature, honest and share my idea of fun.
I tend to prefer a person who is crassly honest than sweetly insincere and deceptive.

Different people use different emotions as a threshold to like or dislike someone.

But there are indeed some common qualities that extracts and drives our emotions, make us feel a certain way.

Before you make someone feel positive, make them feel (anything)

Some products are dry as a tropical day. Interacting with them is like brushing your teeth. You do it everyday, and you do not like or dislike it.

So What Emotions lead us to feel strongly about a Product?
How do you like an intelligent person who is also friendly, honest and trustworthy?

We like our humans and Products alike.

Making Products Feel Intelligent

Intelligent Products makes users feel understood. Less becomes more. Users problem is not only solved, but solved elegantly and with minimum hassle.

• Focus on making your Product look Intelligent (Along with making it)
  Intelligent Products are not always perceived intelligent. One miss in a conversation and the user is ready to jump off the chatbot.
  Find a way to communicate to users how you solved the complicated problem. I cannot lay more emphasis on the fact that we need to be very subtle about it. No one likes a Tell-it-All.
  Here is a guide to managing Product Perception.
• Make it fast
  Intelligent people process information faster and so do intelligent Products. Speed changes perceptions.
• Use customer input data wisely to avoid asking for the same later
  Performing multiple transitions on my bank is such a hassle. It asks me for details twice, and validation multiple times. A simple transaction storage solves this problem in most products.

Making Products Feel Friendly

A good User Experience for me is just simplicity. Allow me to perform the task for which I am here for in an easy hassle free manner.

A good User Experience is undoubtedly the heart and soul of a Product. But not all elements of UX hold the same amount of criticality when making a Product friendly.

• A good interaction Design has the maximum impact on User perception
  Focusing on making selected features easily discoverable, and run without a hitch is all that a user ever needs.

But friendly does not only mean UX. Friendly also means that users feel understood and respected.

• Give users choice wherever you can
  Ask users upfront if/how many notifications max they would want in a day. It makes them feel respected and not violated.
  Accepting cookies follows the same principle with bad execution.
• Always be Ears for users
  Just like good friends, always be ready to listen to users bitch and moan about your Products. Most Products make it very difficult to relay feedback, so the next time users get really pissed at something they are likely to abandon products if they aren't heard.
  Make it “Product-easy” for users to pass to you the feedback. This means not through customer service, or Contact us vague messaging. Give them a direct way to reach you (or your attention. We don’t want stalkers)

Making Products Feel Honest

Would you be friends with someone who lies to you?
Would you use Uber the next time if it gives you astronomical fare that didn't just seem right? (provided that you have Ola, Lyft, etc. to bank on).

• Honest Pricing
  When it comes to $$$ everyone wants cheap. But most of us are also will likely to shell out money if the Product is valuable.
  But how much money is the question.
  Explain your pricing as easily as you can in a manner that sets mind to ease. And this does not mean the discount bullshit.
  @Medium did this beautiful.

• Proactive communication
  All right, we had some technical glitches. Who does not. Telling customers upfront is perceived to be more honest than letting customers sit through a bad experience where things just don’t work.
• Surprise Surprise! Discounts! (But….with a twist)
  What’s the big deal about discounts!!
  What about giving discounts after purchases have been made?
  Sounds different?
  “We noticed that we made a mistake and charged you more. The items in your order list deserve a discount of 10% extra”
  You might argue that an upfront discount would have gotten additional users to your Product, but this way you know who your loyal customers are and you make them feel all warm and fuzzy about your product.

Honest people are more trustworthy.
So are honest Products.

Showing some love is good, great!
But even the happiest and friendliest of friends sometimes fail when they need to deliver not-so-happy message.

How do you tell someone that you cancelled the trip last minute without it affecting your relation?
How do you convey your displeasure on your friend being an hour late to the party?
How do you hold an intervention without it hurting?
How do you tell someone that you do not have the item they were looking for?
How do you tell someone that their payment got stuck?

And more importantly how do you handle it afterwards?

Sticking together through happiness and sorrow is a sign of great friends! And Great Products!

It matters.

• Advice, not declare failure
  Zappos was famous for its level of customer service. If they did not hold the item the customer wanted, they would find it for the customer in other stores and guide them to the purchase.
  I have never ever seen anyone do that.
  Most often I am met with a rude “There are no matching results”
  Failure often provides us the opportunity to shine.
  Design your experiences to delight the user with
  - excellent customer service, or
  - Alternate Products, or
  - Other Products that users will like, or even follow Zapppos.
• Innovative Delivery of Bad messages
  We innovate on Technology, and we innovate on solutions.
  Find that creativity and deliver messages to cause minimum damage.
  Important points to note here is considering users emotional stage, and strongly considering your messaging based on user persona(Not everyone likes cheeky cheesy messages).
  What could be a better use of your deep expertise in stakeholder communication than this!

Final Thoughts

Inciting a desired Emotion is tough. Which is why all of us are not Dostoevsky and Dickens. They induce their readers through a seemingly simple extremely intricate plot that twists and turns its characters through the roller coaster till their readers begin to feel what they were designed to feel.

Our job is much easier. We have existing products with a delightful User Experience already in place.
Now all we need to do is to make the audience feel warm and fuzzy about our products, and here is the cheat sheet (in case you scrolled directly right at the bottom):

• Make Products feel Intelligent
• Make Products feel Friendly
• Make them feel honest and trustworthy
• Design your style of delivering bad messages without harming your credibility and track record.

How do we do that?
The answers are right at the top.

I intend to keep this article live and will keep adding more ideas as I discover them. Any suggestions, ideas, what has worked for you and what has not, are most welcome.