Using “Emotion granularity” as a method and concept in psychology, researchers from the Netherlands and the UK have identified seven benefits of utilizing positive emotion granularity in product development. They interviewed 25 product development professionals, including product managers, marketers, designers, user researchers, and developers to come up with these benefits. By using this method, the product development team can get a more thorough understanding of the emotional state of the target audience, determine the emotional impact of the product on people, gain support from different department units, maintain a stable quality of internal communication, and more. The researchers concluded that utilizing positive emotion granularity in product development can help development professionals understand the relationship between user behavior and emotions more accurately.
The value of using “positive emotional granularity” in product development is clear. It helps product development professionals to better understand and respond to users’ emotional states, which ultimately leads to a better user experience and increased product success. The concept of emotional granularity is particularly important in the context of the challenges faced by product development teams. Poor communication, unclear objectives, and lack of consensus can all lead to negative outcomes. By adopting the positive emotional granularity approach, product development teams can address these challenges by improving communication, building consensus, and increasing their understanding of users’ emotional states.
The seven values of positive emotional granularity in product development are:
- Gain a deep understanding of target user emotions.
- Determine the emotional impact of products on people.
- Use emotional granularity to gain support from different departments.
- Maintain stable communication quality within the team.
- Promote creativity and design solutions.
- Strengthen the connection between marketing and products.
- Build consensus and team morale.
Overall, the use of emotional granularity has many potential applications, including measuring user feedback on competitors in the strategy phase, evaluating the emotional impact of products on target users in the product verification phase, and measuring user feedback consistency and effectiveness in the product usage phase.
The scope of use can be:
a. Strategy-building stage: used to measure user feedback on emotions towards competitors.
b. Product verification stage: evaluate whether the emotional impact of the product on target users is in line with principles.
c. Product use stage: measure whether the feedback from end-users is consistent and effective as expected.