Align Delight to Leader Values

Nasreen Shengal believes that product delight isn't a luxury or mere "confetti" - it's a strategic differentiator that drives business growth through emotional connection with users.

Product delight emerges when you combine joy and surprise in experiences that solve both functional and emotional needs. While many teams focus exclusively on shipping features and functionality, Shengal argues that even well-functioning products struggle to gain traction without addressing the emotional dimension of user experience.

The most successful products create deep emotional connections by working across three key pillars: removing friction at low emotional moments, anticipating needs before users articulate them, and exceeding expectations by delivering more than requested. When Uber made refunds a simple two-click process after a canceled ride, they transformed a potentially frustrating experience into a delightful one. When Revolut added eSIM purchasing functionality to their banking app, they anticipated international travelers' needs in a way that created genuine surprise.

Shengal's approach is systematic rather than subjective. Her Delight Model provides a four-step framework: identify users' functional and emotional motivators, convert these motivators into product opportunities, categorize potential solutions based on their delight grade (surface, low, or deep delight), and validate ideas through a checklist that includes business impact, feasibility, and inclusivity.

For teams with limited resources, Shengal recommends a 50-40-10 allocation: 50% of features addressing functional needs (low delight), 40% blending functional and emotional needs (deep delight), and just 10% focused purely on emotional connection (surface delight). This balanced approach ensures you're not sacrificing functionality while still creating distinctive experiences.

When seeking leadership buy-in, Shengal advises against trying to convince skeptical leaders directly. Instead, understand what they value most and demonstrate how delight aligns with those priorities. For one founder who initially dismissed delight, Shengal asked whether users were proud enough of the product to recommend it to others. This reframing helped him see that emotional connection was essential for word-of-mouth growth, transforming delight from a nice-to-have into a strategic imperative.

The fastest-growing products today - from Cursor to ChatGPT to Linear - aren't winning just by solving problems but by creating experiences that exceed expectations and anticipate needs. As markets become more crowded, the ability to create emotional connection becomes increasingly valuable as a differentiator, regardless of whether you're building for consumers or businesses.