054 The Love Letter & The Breakup Letter

Writing to express sentiments to a personified product or service

• The Love Letter conveys what people feel during moments of connection with a product, including delight, infatuation, and loyalty.

• The Breakup Letter provides insight about how, when, and where a relationship with a product turned sour, to understand why people abandon a product.

• Both exercises are great techniques to use in a group dynamic, including design workshops, group interviews, and icebreaker sessions.

• Ask participants to spend no more than ten minutes on a letter and then volunteers can read theirs aloud.

• The physical letters are important research artifacts, while video can capture participant expressions and voices.

• Methods like the Love Letter and the Breakup Letter build our empathic knowledge base of how people experience and personify designs.

See also   Design Workshops • Desirability Testing • Value Opportunity Analysis

Method courtesy of Smart Design

The Love Letter and Breakup Letter allow participants to express their love or disappointment to a product or service with a handwritten letter.