Designing How Software Feels

Why it attracts me

Before anyone reads a label, they have already formed an impression: calm or busy, trustworthy or flashy, made for them or made to sell to them. I like treating that first impression as part of the idea, not as a coat of paint on top.

An example

Sprout, an early-learning side quest on this site, shows how much the experience itself can say. It is built for children who cannot read yet, so pictures and spoken prompts carry the whole interface, and written explanations sit behind a grown-up gate. It has no ads, purchases, streaks or endless feed, and sessions are deliberately short. Some activities send the child away from the screen entirely: find a shape in the room, or take three giant steps. The design states what the product believes: the screen is a prompt for exploring, not the destination.

What I think (and don't know)

Every design choice says something, whether the designer means it or not. Motion suggests cause, a glow suggests importance, and smooth transitions suggest certainty. I don’t yet know how to measure whether an experience helped someone understand an idea, rather than just enjoy it.

Where it connects

The danger is design that dresses up a model as evidence, which is why this links to Models Are Not Reality. Beautiful Visuals That Stay Honest keeps the beauty honest, and Charts and Diagrams as Thinking Tools is the narrower case of pictures built for thinking.

Questions I'm still exploring

• How can motion make an idea clearer without becoming a distraction?
• Where is the line between engaging design and an attention trap?
• What should someone feel in the first ten seconds of using something I made?

Sources and further reading

• Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (Basic Books, revised edition 2013) — A classic account of how design shapes what people notice and do.