Here are streaming thoughts from Kathy Sierra on Creating Passionate Users:
It is not about the product–it is about helping them do.
What can we help people kick ass doing?
If you help users be passionate you get the some of the spillover passion.
You need to get past the brain’s crap filter.
Chemistry—people need to feel something, think about how you are communicating…weird, novel, different…keep the brain thinking that it is something important…the brain likes the unresolved. Funny..faces…beautiful…sexy…scary
Conversation beats formal lecture.
Talk to the brain not the mind…
Get people past the Suck Threshold and the Passion Threshold. There is an image of experitse, a meaningful benefit, and a series of steps to get there.
To get people to remember, you need to use emotion.
Need to balance challenge versus knowledge and skill.
How do we keep users in flow?
Get There Attention
Challenging Activity
Payoff
You need levels to keep people going.
Levels don’t need to be obvious.
Hero’s Journey
- Life is normal
- Something happens to change that
- Things really suck
- Hero overcomes bad things
- Return to the new normal
Create Playful Work
T-Shirt First Development – people want to identify themselves with you
Give them something to talk about? Make it ambiguous. Coldplay, Fair Trade, and the two black rectangles…
It doesn’t matter what they think about you…it is about how people feel about themselves.
If spend more time in flow, they have happier lives
Tags: sxsw2006
