How design shapes emotional response

Hey everyone! This week we’re diving into Feelings, because every product leaves an emotional impression, whether we plan for it or not. On the Glare page, we show how to measure emotional response using eight core emotions. One team tested new brand colors to see how users reacted, shaping the mood they wanted their design to create.

You’ll also find new interview clips from Sharang Sharma on why AI needs its own design patterns built for clarity and control. And in our featured post, Juhee Dubey explains why AI should support, not replace, UX researchers, sharing a framework to decide what to automate, what to enhance, and what to keep in human hands.

We’ve made more Glare updates too, with a cleaner scoring tool, better mobile navigation, and refined Wiki styles.

Scroll down to explore what’s new.

Bryan

FEATURED GLARE PAGE

Feelings tell you what kind of emotional tone your design is setting, because every product makes people feel something, whether you mean to or not.

On the Glare Feelings page, we show how to measure emotional response using eight core emotions from Plutchik’s Wheel. In this week’s example, an ad management company tested new brand colors to see how well they resonated with users.

The score reveals which emotions your design triggers most, helping you understand the mood your product creates. Feelings give you insight into emotional fit, so you can design experiences that leave users with the right impression.

→ Want to learn more or suggest edits? Join the conversation in the forum.

INTERVIEWS

This week, we’re featuring clips from Sharang Sharma.

He argues that AI requires new UX patterns, not borrowed software models to make experiences trustworthy, transparent, and user-controlled. His perspective reframes AI as a design challenge with its own principles, where success comes from crafting interaction models that give users clarity, control, and safe recovery when mistakes happen.

→ Watch the clips and start thinking beyond the screen.

HELIO LINKEDIN POSTS

In this week’s featured post, Juhee Dubey explains why AI should support, not replace, UX researchers.

She introduces a framework that helps teams decide what to automate, what to enhance with AI, and what must remain in human hands. AI works best when it handles repetitive tasks, helps spot patterns, and leaves empathy and judgment to people.

→ AI should support, not replace, UX researchers.

• Behavioral design signals guide better decisions. (Bryan Zmijewski)
• Product design decisions create value for business and users. (Bryan Zmijewski) 
• Your users have the answers you need.  (Bryan Zmijewski) 

Thanks to all the authors we linked above in the articles:

Ellina Morits, Kateryna Mayka, Daria Korniienko, Jonathan Montalvo, Kate Moran, Maria Rosala, and Ben Wiedmaier, Ph.D.

BRYAN’S LINKEDIN POSTS

Bryan argues that most product teams don’t fail because their ideas are bad, but because they miss the signals that show whether those ideas create real value.

When the time to build and the time for users to feel value drift apart, debates stall, momentum dies, and good ideas get lost.

→ Most product teams don’t fail because of bad ideas.

• Fast features are useless if users don’t feel value.
• User research is not a straight line.
• AI design creates a services layer beyond UI.
• What’s a design signal?
• Value for users stalls without the right signals.
• Indecision kills momentum faster than bad ideas.

WEBINAR REPLAY

Catch our latest webinar, “A Sharper Way To Show Your Design Works,” now available on LinkedIn.

In this live session, Bryan shows how UX metrics cut through opinions and reveal where designs succeed—or fall short—based on user behavior, not guesses.

→ Watch Bryan present now

GLARE FORUM 

Nathalie Smith shares an article about Technical Designers, and opinions start flying about curiosity, practicality, and what drives the pursuit.

Ben talks AI metrics, possibly for the first time on the forum. There are many layers to assess here, and this is a good conversation starter!

MoData (Morgan) shares about the Feelings metric and asks What’s the best way to measure feelings in UX research?

Eric Zwierzynski talks comparative lenses, and opens up discussion of the different perspectives that drive our assessment of comparisons in design research.

💎 Glare Wiki Enhancements

Here are the items that were updated this week in Glare:

• Content Styles: Cleaned up list styles to make them more succinct across content within the platform.
• Scoring Key Component: Updated our new Scoring Key component from last week to include all UX Metrics, editable percentage ranges, and cleaned up column styles.
• Mobile Updates: Made our mobile Sign In and Join the Community CTAs in the navigation to be easier to click on.

Check out the v0.9.9.9.1 Release Notes for more details on these updates. We're constantly working to improve and refine Glare, and we appreciate your continued support and feedback!