Prompt Cast
Designing Software as a Game: Insights from Superhuman Founder
TLDR Superhuman, an email software, has implemented game design principles to create a fun and engaging user experience. By focusing on speed, engineering for flow, and incorporating emotionally resonant moments, Superhuman has successfully designed software that feels like a game.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
Rahul Vohra, founder of superhuman, discusses the concept of designing software to feel like a game and how they have implemented it in their product.
04:43
A game is simply something that you play, and a good game is something that is fun to play with pleasant surprise.
09:53
Superhuman's principles for creating a good game involve factors such as goals, motions, controls, toys, and flow, and draw upon various fields such as psychology, mathematics, storytelling, and interaction design.
14:44
Superhuman's focus on speed and engineering for flow was inspired by the intense flow experience the founder had while racing his Lamborghini Gallardo, and they strive to recreate that sensation in their email software.
19:40
Superhuman spent two years developing a way to download, store, and index all of a user's email in the browser itself, allowing for fast and simultaneous searching both locally and on the Gmail server.
24:43
Superhuman's design team faced challenges in merging different experiences seamlessly and achieving perfect typography, but they were able to overcome these obstacles by reverse engineering the font layout engine and building their own layout framework in CSS.
29:49
The podcast discusses the impact of extrinsic rewards on motivation and emphasizes the importance of designing software to evoke emotions and create a sense of accomplishment, rather than relying solely on gamification techniques like points and badges.
35:06
The Superhuman team tested the idea of including achievements and stats in their software by analyzing metrics, emailing users insights about their behavior, and conducting interviews, ultimately finding that certain stats, like streak stats, were highly compelling and reinforced intrinsic motivation without undermining it.
40:02
The Superhuman team discovered that achieving inbox zero is one of the most emotionally resonant moments for users, and they designed the software to reinforce this feeling of accomplishment through the use of stunning imagery that evokes emotions of love, surprise, and awe.
45:19
The principles of experience design, including goals, emotions, controls, toys, and flow, can be applied outside of just a product role and can be useful in other areas of company building, such as selling houses or renting apartments, by considering the goals and emotions of the customers and designing the experience accordingly.
50:51
The principles of game design can be applied to any experience, such as using scents to evoke memories or emotions, and listeners can try Superhuman or get on the waitlist by going to superhuman.com and entering "acquired podcast" in the referral box.
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Technology
Business
