Design for Both Needs and Wants: Applying Anderson’s User Experience Hierarchy of Needs - Zeijls/web-design-1920 GitHub Wiki

Functional. Information needs to be usable, understandable, and accessible. At the most basic level, people need to be able to use and understand it. If not, it fails right away.

Reliable. Beyond functional, information and the medium in which it is presented needs to be reliable. If the information is untrustworthy or lacks or credibility—or if the technology on which it is presented (say, on a website) breaks down or is full of broken links, its reliability will kill its functionality.

Usable. Usability, in the words of web guru Steve Krug, means to not make people think. In other words, information should be as efficient as possible without creating stumbling blocks along the way. If people can’t find information or they make several errors or misturns, then the information isn’t all that usable. THRESHOLDInformation designs should meet the first three in order to, at the very least, meet users’ needs.

Convenient. After crossing the threshold of functionality, reliability, and usability, information should become convenient. In other words, it should be natural to read and follow, it should be simple to navigate, and it should be easy to use.

Pleasurable. Information can become enjoyable to access if it is aesthetically pleasing and written with friendly, conversational language, infusing concepts such as humor, fun, and personable.

Meaningful. At the highest level of experiential design, information that becomes meaningful directly impacts the emotions and perspectives of your reader-user in new ways. Meaningfulness is subjective and not always easy to capture, but if you can move your audiences in impactful ways by telling stories and capturing cultural, personal, and societal nuances, then you’ve really done something with communicative power.