Designing for Emotional Impact

The next wave of marketing innovation isn’t about automation alone — it’s about emotion. Which shoe would you get? AI today can recognize tone, facial expressions, and even micro-emotions in voice and text. This emotional intelligence is turning marketing from mass communication into personal connection. 🧠 Data speaks for itself: + 80% of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase when brands show they understand their emotions. (Capgemini Research) + Emotionally connected customers have a 306% higher lifetime value than those who are merely satisfied. (Motista) + 70% of marketers using AI-driven personalization report double-digit engagement growth. (Salesforce) 💡 Real-world examples: + Coca-Cola uses AI-powered creative tools to adapt campaigns to local culture and sentiment in real time. + Netflix’s recommendation engine reads emotional cues in viewing behavior to tailor what feels just right for each user. + Adidas combines AI sentiment analysis with influencer content to sense trends before they peak — turning feelings into foresight. This isn’t marketing as usual — it’s marketing that feels. When technology understands emotion, brand experience becomes unforgettable. #AI #MarketingInnovation #EmotionalIntelligence #CustomerExperience #DigitalTransformation #MarTech #BrandStrategy

How does form speak before words do? We often underestimate how much form speaks before function does. +83% of human perception is visual, meaning that shape communicates faster than color, typography, or even words. Curves soothe, edges energize, and symmetry calms, proving that form becomes emotion long before thought. The emerging Shape Language trend redefines how design connects with human emotion. It explores how geometry, proportion, and materiality create a silent but powerful dialogue between people and products. Every contour, shadow, and curve holds emotional weight, transforming physical form into psychological response. In today’s saturated visual landscape, form has become a filter for meaning. +61% of consumers are drawn to designs that “feel balanced and harmonious,” while +52% associate rounded, organic shapes with safety and care. Curves represent softness, while linear structures communicate confidence, logic, and control. The tension between both creates the visual rhythm of modern design, a choreography between emotion and precision. Across packaging, product, and digital spaces, this language manifests through fluid silhouettes, seamless edges, and soft matte finishes that highlight purity and tactility. Designers leverage volume, light, and negative space to evoke emotion through simplicity, showing that minimalism can feel sensual, not sterile. >> Tactility plays a central role. << +36% of consumers report that sensory finishes increase perceived quality. Soft-touch coatings, embossed details, and smooth transitions invite interaction, turning design into experience. In cosmetics and personal care, these elements mirror the luminous, hydrated textures of skin-first beauty, aligning visual identity with sensorial reality. Digital environments follow the same gramar, rounded corners, gentle gradients, and smooth animations evoke empathy and calm. Shape becomes the bridge between technology and emotion, the interface between artificial precision and human warmth. Ultimately, Shape Language is not about decoration, but intention. Every curve carries purpose, every edge defines character. To design with form awareness is to speak a universal visual language, one that transcends words and connects directly to the senses. Because before we read, we feel. And before we understand, we perceive. Featured brands: Current State Studiowest Sundae Beached Moody Neat WWP Beauty Evia

If your audience didn’t feel anything… you didn’t give a speech. You gave a TEDx audition. The best speakers don’t just inform or entertain. They move people emotionally. Case in point: that viral Thai ad “The Dog” by Kiatnakin Bank. No dialogue. No celebrities. Yet millions cried. Why? Because it tapped into something universal: human emotion. So… how do you do that as a speaker? After 15 years of speaking in 39 countries to half a million people, here's how I evoke emotions in my audience. 1. Choose the emotional entry point, not just the story. Every speech has two beginnings: - the first line you say - and the first feeling your audience registers Before you write anything, ask: “What’s the emotional state they’re in right now?” Are they burned out? Feeling stuck? Hopeful but scared? Then ask: “What emotion do I want them to leave with?” When those two emotions connect, where they are and where you want to take them, your speech becomes a journey, not a monologue. 2. Use emotional contrast, not just chronology. So instead of storytelling like “this happened, then this…” (boring!) Build it like a movie trailer. What creates suspense? Contrast. Here’s how I structure it now: Before the storm - Life was okay… or so I thought... The disruption - Something happened I didn’t see coming... The emotional cost - I didn’t just lose money/time/status, I lost sleep, confidence, myself... The turning moment - And then suddenly... (a moment of truth, a wise mentor, or a shift in perspective) changed everything The ripple effect - That shift led to action, small at first, but it created a wave of momentum, and the results started to follow (yay!) The transfer – And here’s what that means for you. This format works because it mirrors the emotions of transformation and that’s what people want to feel. 3. Give emotional language, not just a moral. Most speakers end with “So… never give up.” (boring!!) But audiences can’t act on vague encouragement. What they need is emotional vocabulary. Say: “If you’re in that same dark place… you don’t need motivation. You need clarity. And here’s how I found mine...” or “Maybe today you’re like how I was, smiling on the outside yet quietly panicking inside.” Insight lands when people feel seen. 4. Don't just end hope. Instill self-belief in them. Our job as speakers isn't to impress the room. Our job is to transfer belief and courage so they are empowered to make the necessary changes even after you have left the stage. Here's how I do it. I say: “You don’t need my story to be inspired. You need to see yourself in my story. And if a guy who used to panic before every speech can now speak globally… I promise, there’s more in you than you know.” Remember, your audience will likely forget what you say but they will never forget how you make them FEEL. This is how you get asked back again and again! #publicspeaking #getpaidtospeak

90% of a presentation gets forgotten. So how do audiences decide who's worth remembering? Let’s be honest. Most presentations are totally wiped from people's brains by the time they have their morning coffee the next day. Audiences don't do this maliciously. They do it because their brains are exhausted and trying to filter out the noise. I have sat through enough presentations and delivered enough myself to know one thing: Smart content simply isn't enough. If you don't pass the audience's silent filtering process, you become background noise. That process has three stages: 1️⃣ The Relevance Filter This is where people ask: "Why do I care?" ↳ Talk about their messy reality: Address the exact headache they were complaining about this morning. ↳ Stop zooming out: Nobody wants another 30,000-foot macro trend. Give them the ground view. ↳ Ditch the generic intro: Skip the long wind-up and dive straight into the problem they are facing right now. ↳ Keep it grounded: Use examples that make people nod along and think, “Yeah, I've been there.” ↳ Read the room: If the energy drops, drop your script and address the actual vibe in the space. Once people see your message applies to them, they move to the next filter. 2️⃣ The Resonance Filter This is where people ask: "Do I actually feel this?" ↳ Aim for the gut, not just the brain: Facts change arguments, but emotion changes how people behave. ↳ Lean into the friction: Don't just share a lesson. Share the stakes, the tension, and what went wrong first. ↳ Paint a mental picture: Use analogies that people can physically picture in their minds. ↳ Stop being perfect: People don't connect with flawless case studies. They connect with human slip-ups. ↳ Show the before and after: Paint a crystal-clear contrast between the current pain and the relief you're offering. Feeling something isn't enough. People also need to remember it. 3️⃣ The Retention Filter This is where people ask: "Can I actually repeat this later?" ↳ The 10-word boundary: If your main idea can't fit on a t-shirt, nobody is going to remember it tomorrow. ↳ Ruthlessly kill the fluff: Cut out the extra side stories that dilute your single biggest point. ↳ Give a next-day win: Give them one tiny thing they can literally test out tomorrow morning at 9 AM. ↳ Say it more than once: Don't be afraid to repeat your core catchphrase three or four times. Repetition builds memory. ↳ Make it visual: Give them a simple mental map or sketch that they can easily scribble down in their notes. Great presentations don't overload people with information. They give people something worth remembering. Which of these filters do you see speakers trip over the most? Let me know in the comments 👇 📌 If you want more leadership content like this guide: 1. Follow Lauren Murrell 2. Save the post. 3. Repost to your network. 4. Subscribe to: https://lnkd.in/eRMwPuYk

A study found a well-designed sonic identity delivers 8 times better brand linkage & recall than a visual logo alone. McDonald's five-note "ba da ba ba baaa" has stayed consistent for over 30 years. Apple built an entire vocabulary of interface tones that read as unmistakably Apple without any of them being a standalone jingle. The mechanism is what makes this worth more than a design trivia note: sound bypasses conscious evaluation and lands in the brain's emotional processing before rational thought has a chance to intervene. A visual logo asks to be recognized. A sonic one produces a reaction before recognition even starts. Most brand systems stop at a visual identity and treat sound as an afterthought, usually a stock hold-tune or whatever the video editor picked. The brands that treated sound as seriously as their logo, Netflix's startup chime, Apple's whole tonal system, built an asset that works even when someone isn't looking at a screen.

I went to an AI UX workshop last night expecting recycled LinkedIn advice about "building AI trust through transparency." Instead, Isabella Yamin tore down LinkedIn's job posting flow using her CarbonCopies AI framework in real-time, while founders shared raw implementation struggles. It completely changed how I'm rethinking Maibel's onboarding flow. Here's what I stole from B2B SaaS principles to redesign emotional AI for B2C: 1️⃣ Progressive disclosure with purpose LinkedIn's fatal flaw? Optimizing for completion ease > Outcome quality. Recruiters are drowning in irrelevant applications because AI never learns what "qualified" means. The personalization paradox: How do we give users enough control without overwhelming them? Users don't want "frictionless". They want INFORMED control. 📌 At Maibel: I was falling into the same trap, making emotional coaching setup so simple that the AI couldn't understand user context. Now? Progressive complexity with clear trade-offs. Show users how their choices impact outcomes. → Want deeper insights? Add more context. → Want faster setup? Here's what the AI can't personalize. 2️⃣ Closed-loop data intelligence: What Platfio gets right They've built a platform for software agencies where where every data point feeds back into the entire system. User preferences in marketing flows shape proposals. Campaign performance shapes future recommendations. Every interaction becomes intelligence for future recommendations. 📌 At Maibel: Most wellness apps store emotional check-ins like digital journals. I'm turning them into predictive feedback loops. Emotional intelligence isn’t static but COMPOUNDS. Today's reflections shift tomorrow's suggestions. Patterns fuel prevention. Users' inputs on Monday could predict AND prevent Friday's breakdown. 3️⃣  Multi-modal creativity: Wubble's transparency approach Translating images and files into music - who'd have thought? They've cracked multi-modal creativity where users become co-creators, not passive consumers. The breakthrough moment for me: What if users could see how their visual environment contributes to emotional context? 📌 At Maibel: Users upload images of their day and see how AI analyzes emotional cues: cluttered workspace = overwhelm, junk food = stress eating. Multi-modal understanding users can contribute to and influence. 💡 The bottom line? B2B Saas gets one thing right: Every interaction has to earn trust. In B2B, failed AI means churn. In emotional AI, failed trust breaks belief in tech entirely. 📌 Here's what we're doing differently at Maibel: → Progressive complexity → Context-aware feedback → Multi-modal participation → Intelligence that compounds with every input. It's not just about building WITH AI. I'm designing systems that learn understand YOU before you even need to explain yourself. Kudos to Isabella, Shivang Gupta The Generative Beings, Shaad Sufi Hayden Cassar and everyone who shared deep product insights.

Long before screens, pixels, or digital touchpoints, human beings understood a fundamental truth: sound carries emotion instantly. If you’ve seen The Odyssey, which is dominating the box office this summer, you know the power of that premise. When Odysseus returns home in disguise, how does he finally reveal who he is? Through the distinct, unmistakable sound of his plucked bowstring. In a single note, the disguise falls away. Audio achieves what visuals cannot: immediate, visceral recognition. As marketers navigating today’s hyper-fragmented digital ecosystem, we find ourselves interacting with consumers across smart speakers, wearables, and voice assistants. Yet a fundamental question remains for brand builders: if a consumer can’t see your logo, how do they know it’s you? This is the exact challenge we tackled when pioneering Mastercard’s global sonic brand. A distinct sonic signature functions just like Odysseus's bowstring. It tells your audience who you are — instantly, emotionally, and unmistakably. When stripped of visual cues, audio becomes your most reliable fingerprint. Marketing is no longer about just designing for a world that looks. Are you building your brand for a world that listens? Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pic/Melinda Sue Gordon - © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Most AI discussions in UX focus on automation. That’s the least interesting part. We are so busy asking how AI can make digital experiences more intelligent that we rarely ask how they could make them more empathetic. I recently discussed this on the Future of UX Podcast 🎙️ where we explored a concept I strongly believe will shape the next decade of digital design: the Empathic Web. The real shift isn’t that interfaces become smarter. It’s that they may become responsive to human context for the first time. Not just what someone does. But how they might feel while doing it. Imagine digital experiences that adapt their tone, complexity, or guidance depending on whether someone seems confident, stressed, or overwhelmed. Not as manipulation, but as a new maturity level of user experience. At the same time, another shift is emerging: designers may soon design not only for humans, but also for AI agents acting on their behalf. This changes how we think about interfaces, information architecture, and even what a “user” is. If you're interested in where UX, AI, and emotional intelligence intersect, this podcast conversation gives a good overview of the opportunities and the ethical questions this creates. Follow me if you're interested in the future of the Empathic Web, AI-driven UX, and how design leadership must evolve in this transition. LINK to Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dvUsXxX8 LINK to other podcast providers: https://lnkd.in/dwpJfsQA #UXDesign #ArtificialIntelligence #DesignLeadership #FutureOfWork #ProductDesign #HumanCenteredDesign #DigitalTransformation #AIUX

For curiosity-driven readers: What if fonts weren’t just letters? I’ve been thinking a lot about how we experience design lately, not just visually, but emotionally. Sure, great visuals still catch our eye. But what’s really been interesting to me is how much things like typography, shape, and motion impact how we feel about what we see. Recently, I’ve been watching more animated videos, and it’s honestly changed how I look at design. I no longer see things as just “objects” but I’ve started seeing them as ways of representing emotion, energy, even personality. Take something as simple as the Google homepage. Ever noticed how it subtly changes its font or shape to reflect something significant happening that day? It's such a small shift, but it completely transforms the tone. Or the Incredible India campaign, the way the "I" in India becomes an exclamation mark made up of monuments and cultural icons. It wasn’t just typography. It was storytelling. It made me realize: Typography isn’t just about fonts or letters. It’s about perspective on how we choose to look at things. That’s why I’ve started experimenting with UX in a more playful way using elements we work with every day (like sticky notes, wireframes, colour palettes) as storytelling tools. It’s made design feel more human, more fun, lot more meaningful. Have you come across a campaign or brand that made you feel something just through how it was designed? Would love to hear your favourites. #UXDesign #Typography #VisualStorytelling #UserExperience #DesignThinking #Google #DesignInspiration #ProductDesign #Linkedin

We often say “people don’t buy products, they buy feelings.” But here’s the twist; people don’t just buy feelings. They experience them through design. Every swipe, scroll, haptic pulse, sound cue, and animation is a moment of emotional choreography. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • FEATURES DON’T CONVERT - FEELINGS DO A smooth interface isn’t enough anymore. What converts is the emotion the experience evokes - relief, delight, confidence, or even belonging. You don’t remember the app that loaded fastest. You remember the one that made you smile when it did. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • FEELINGS DRIVE DECISIONS (AND REVENUE) → Cognitive fluency: Interfaces that are simple and predictable “feel right,” which reads as trustworthy and high quality. → Loss aversion: Users work harder to avoid losing what they’ve earned (credits, streaks, carts) than to gain something new. → Peak–End rule: People remember the emotional high point and the ending. Design your peaks and endings like they’re your brand. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • MICRO-INTERACTIONS = MICRO-EMOTIONS → Apple’s haptics reduce uncertainty and signal precision (visceral satisfaction confidence). → Netflix previews create open loops (Zeigarnik effect) that pull you into a session before you choose. → Duolingo blends encouragement + accountability: streaks (goal-gradient), “streak freeze” (loss aversion), leaderboards (social proof), and the owl’s tone (gentle shame → commitment). • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • CLOSE THE “AFFECTIVE GAP” BETWEEN GOOD AND GREAT Good brands ship usable features. Great brands shape feelings across the whole journey: → Visceral layer (first glance): Reduce cognitive load; make the next action obvious. → Behavioral layer (in use): Show progress, provide reversible choices, celebrate milestones. → Reflective layer (memory): End on a high, summarize achievement, invite sharing. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • MAKE EMOTION MEASURABLE Feelings aren’t fluffy if you pick the right lenses: → Confidence Task success without help, drop in abandonment at critical steps. → Progress Time-to-first-value, streak retention, return after day 7/30. → Belonging/Recognition Organic shares, community replies, unsolicited reviews. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • When emotion becomes part of UX, you don’t just create usability. You create affinity. Because features are copied. But feelings? Those are proprietary. ------------------------------------------ 💬 Let me know what you think 🔗 Share if helpful! 👉 Follow Anand Sankara Narayanan for brand stories & strategies ------------------------------------------