It’s all about emotions

I work in a web agency and everyday I help create something that communicates a service or a product. There is more to it but if I could resume my work in one word it would be experiences.

Part of being in a business that helps others to communicate online I go to a lot of meetings with stakeholders and product owners. I stay there for a couple of hours listening them proudly talk about their company, about their products and services. I like it a lot and learn so much about things I never knew before, it’s a very rewarding experience.

But before I start writing my thoughts about this I need to put things into context a bit more.

As human beings we are born with emotions imprinted in our genetic code, it’s part of what makes us humans. Emotions are what drives us, what makes us connect with other people and with things. They are responsible for our most everlasting memories as well. We all remember our first kiss or that time when we felt embarrassed in front of all those people. Good feelings makes us want to relive that experience and bad don’t.

So what does this have to do with going to meetings and learning things about the client’s business?

I’m a designer and part of my work is finding a way of communicating all those values and voice online. I develop systems that help clients do what they do best offline, tell a story, sell their brand and make others feel how good they are.

Aarron Walter from Mailchimp has already pointed out in on of his talks Designing for Emotion.

We can make lots of stuff, but if we are not making things that make people feel something, what are we doing? Why are we getting up in the morning?

So everything I do is make other people feel good about my client’s products or services. I feel proud most of the time with the end result, it’s well thought, all the pieces are connected and all makes sense.

But what happens when the work is done? What happens when a designer is no longer part of the maintenance or in control of what goes online?

I believe the same way designers need to craft experiences that work, people that maintain websites in a daily basis need to do the same thing. They need to care, need to have the same voice, communicate the same values and not copy and paste from word something someone wrote. Images need to be meaningful and say something, content needs to be thoughtful.

So I make this plead to all of you who manage your company’s website and publish articles or the company organogram pages.

Please care and think about what you are trying to convey, stop for a second and see if what you are doing is what your company wants others to feel about it. Because good experiences generate good feelings and that has a positive consequence while bad experiences will only harm the brand.

Keep up with the good work and do better.

Follow me on Twitter @carlosjgsousa