The World's Most Satisfying Checkbox

Consider your own product. Is it fun, even without a goal? Does it indulge moments of playful exploration? Does it create moments of pleasant surprise? If so, congratulations because then you have a toy and you're on the way to building a great game.

You see — if software is to have soul, it must feel more like the world around it. Which is the biggest clue of all that feeling is what’s missing from today’s software. Because the value of the tools, objects, and artworks that we as humans have surrounded ourselves with for thousands of years goes so far beyond their functionality. In many ways,

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I would advise, as an industry, to pull back from this obsession with user wants and user needs and instead to design for fun. What you want your players to feel, what is the emotional path for them to get there, and how does your software—your business product, if that's what you're building—take them along the path?