- Juice refers to non-essential visual, audio, and haptic effects that enhance user experience, such as sound effects in games like Mario.
- Juice can teach users, make interfaces feel alive, improve responsiveness and reward, and strengthen emotional connections, making experiences memorable.
- Game Feel is the tactile sensation from manipulating a digital agent, achieved through juicing, e.g., Mario's nuanced movements and sounds.
- The pane of glass in interfaces and muted input devices create obstacles, compensated by redundant techniques like multiple animations and sounds.
- In non-game software, excessive juice can degrade UX; it should suit the intended purpose, focusing on mundane tasks over rare events.
- Prioritize juicing frequent, routine actions (e.g., moment-to-moment gameplay) rather than rare events like completing onboarding.
- Design interfaces as toys first for fun and playful exploration, then build games; this foundation is key to great user feel.
- Emotional requirements matter; juicing can celebrate achievements (e.g., habit-tracking checkbox) by acknowledging their symbolic meaning.
- Software with soul fulfills emotional needs, contrasting with soulless, functional-only designs like hospitals or minimal interfaces.
- Juice adds soul but is often absent due to underestimating emotions; it's essential for human-centric design, not just function.
- Create soul by asking how users should feel, drawing inspiration from art and media, and using emotional models like the Superhuman app.
- Examples include GitHub chat easter eggs, D&D Beyond 3D dice, Firewatch parallax scrolling, and multiteam software that uses juiced setup screens.
- Tweening (ease-in/out) and FLIP animation techniques juice transitions, making UI changes intuitive and less jarring.
- Call of Duty uses loading screens for non-intrusive teaching, while Half-Life scripts sequences for tension, teaching, and player acknowledgment.
- Game of Thrones' juiced title sequence helps viewers track locations and events, improving engagement.
- Amazon Prime Video can juice pause screens with actor info, recaps, or clickable lore to deepen user connection.
- Other techniques include juicing empty states, particles, screen shake, lush animations, physics-based objects, and freeze frames.