Peak-End Rule

What is more important, how we start or how we finish? As this question can be viewed from many angles, most of us agree that we want to finish it with a sense of satisfaction. In User Experience, the psychological layer does express many insights. Users do have emotions. Emotions can be up and down all the time on the entire digital journey of your solution. Some of the emotions do reach a peak at their moment - which can seed a positive or negative experience. As producers of a digital journey, we are responsible for seeding more positive experiences than negative ones. But, once the journey ends, you can’t control where the seed is now. Users judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end rather than the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. Not all users have the superpower to reflect and handle the good and the bad experiences in the end. That’s why never underestimate the Peak-end effect. Pay close attention to the most intense points and the final moments (the “end”) of the user journey. Identify the moments when your product is most helpful, valuable, or entertaining and design to delight to the end user. By seeking out and crafting certain experiences, we can seed better memories that will probably last longer. In the end, the end matters a lot.