The Delight Grid
A step by step tool to bring your product to the next level
What separates a good product from one that users love? It’s not just about getting the job done—it’s about creating moments that leave users feeling joy, pride, and connection. Successful products engage users emotionally while solving practical problems, forming deep connections that keep them coming back. But how do you systematically create these experiences?
The Kano Model categorizes solutions into Must-Have, Performance, and Delight. But what are delights, really? How can we avoid the trap of only delivering aesthetic delight and instead maximize features that trigger emotional connection between the product and the users?
In a previous blog post, I explored the concept of Delight, delving into its various levels and highlighting the significant benefits of incorporating it into your product.
The Delight Grid helps your product team strike the perfect balance between functionality and emotion. When you categorize solutions into Low Delight, Surface Delight, and Deep Delight, you increase your chance of creating solutions that not only solve user problems but also elevate the experience.
Let’s dive into how using The Delight Grid can transform your approach to product development—building experiences that go beyond the functional and create lasting emotional engagement.
Identifying user’s motivators
Every user interacts with a product to achieve a specific goal, which forms the foundation for meeting their needs. For example, Spotify users primarily want to listen to audio content, while Google Meet users aim to join or host meetings.
However, users vary in their reasons for using a product, so a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. By segmenting users based on unique needs, you can create more targeted solutions.
Motivational segmentation, focusing on why users engage with a product, is especially powerful. It reveals core motivators, whether functional or emotional, helping you build experiences that meet both practical and deeper, emotional needs.
Figure 1- Users’ motivators
Functional motivators
Functional motivators are the practical reasons users engage with a product, focused on tasks they want to accomplish efficiently. Common motivators include:
Efficiency: Completing tasks quickly.
Ease of Use: Intuitive, user-friendly design.
Problem-Solving: Addressing specific needs.
For instance, Spotify users seek to easily find and play music. Meeting these needs ensures the product serves its core purpose, though functional satisfaction alone may not foster long-term loyalty.
Emotional motivators
Emotional motivators reflect how users want to feel while using a product, either personally or socially:
Personal Emotional Motivators: Relate to self-perception, such as feeling:
Pride: Satisfaction in achievements.
Accomplishment: Progress or success.
Control: Mastery and empowerment.
Social Emotional Motivators: Relate to social perception, such as seeking:
Admiration: Respect from peers.
Connection: Bonds with others.
Validation: Recognition from a community.
Figure 2 illustrates functional and emotional needs for a Spotify user, which would differ for Spotify artists.
Figure 2- Visualizing a subset of functional and emotional needs for a Spotify users.
Identifying and categorizing solutions using The Delight Grid
To convert motivators into actionable areas, ask “How might we…” questions. If users want to feel proud of using the product but don’t, consider, "How might we create an experience they are proud to share?".
Once you've identified opportunity areas, group similar ones together. Functional opportunities, such as improving efficiency or ease of use, are more measurable and practical. Emotional opportunities, like fostering fulfilment or connection, focus on enhancing the user’s feelings.
Identify solutions for each opportunity
For each opportunity area, it's essential to brainstorm specific solutions or product features that can fulfil both the functional and emotional needs of users. Start by asking key questions to explore potential solutions:
What features could help solve this opportunity?
What experiences can we design that address both the functional motivator and the emotional desire?
Once you’ve flashed out some potential solutions, the next step is to categorize the solutions using the Delight Grid.
Placing ideas in the Delight Grid
Once we have identified several potential solutions, review and refine these options to ensure they align with both functional motivators (practical tasks users want to accomplish) and emotional motivators (how users want to feel when using the product). The Delight Grid is a tool that helps categorize the identified solutions by mapping the needs each solution solves.
Figure 3- The Delight Grid: Mapping solutions to the functional and emotional needs they solve.
The first column lists the functional Needs.
The first row lists the Emotional Needs (both personal and social).
The idea is to place all potential solutions within the Delight Grid. The solutions are placed within the grid based on which need(s) they address.
Figure 4- Categorizing solutions based on their level of Delight
Low Delight: Solutions that solve functional needs only. These are essential, but they don’t excite the user emotionally and do not exceed expectations.
Surface Delight: Solutions that solve emotional needs only. These bring excitement but may not solve critical functional problems.
Deep Delight: Solutions that solve both functional and emotional needs, creating the most impactful user experiences.
A solution can solve multiple emotional needs making it even more likely to create emotional connection.
The Delight Grid helps product managers visualize how solutions address both functional and emotional needs. Its primary purpose is to raise awareness, enabling product teams to assess how many planned features fall into the categories of Low Delight, Surface Delight, and Deep Delight.
Ideally, product teams should aim for a balanced combination of all three types of delight in the product roadmap. This ensures functional needs are met while also delivering features that surprise, delight, and emotionally engage users.
A secondary goal of the Delight Grid is to identify opportunities within Low Delight features to elevate them to Deep Delight. This transformation maximizes user satisfaction and engagement by addressing needs brilliantly while exceeding expectations.
What to do next
Once you place solutions in the grid, look at Low Delight features, which primarily solve functional needs but may lack emotional engagement. Can you transform these basic solutions into features that Add an emotional element? Consider introducing a personal or social-emotional motivator to enhance the user’s experience. How might the feature make users feel more empowered, proud, or connected?
By asking these questions, you can turn simple, functional features into solutions that are both highly effective and emotionally engaging.
Conclusion
The Delight Framework empowers product teams to create roadmaps that balance both functional efficiency and emotional engagement. It begins by identifying user goals and understanding what motivates them, both practically and emotionally.
From there, the Delight Grid helps categorize potential solutions into three levels: Low Delight (addressing functional needs), Surface Delight (addressing emotional needs), and Deep Delight (addressing both).
This tool encourages product managers to go beyond simply solving problems, pushing them to explore how their products can evoke stronger emotional connections and create truly engaging user experiences.
Want to attract and keep customers and users? When you build your product with delight in mind, you strengthen the emotional connection your customers and users have with your product. That results in higher customer retention and increases the likelihood that they’ll recommend your product to others.
I started this newsletter to help you incorporate delight into your product. In upcoming issues, I’ll share my experiences building delightful products at Google, Spotify and Microsoft and explain how you can do it too.
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