The Wheel of Joy represents the what. Cool products create joy by fulfilling basic human motivations—Accomplishment, Connection, Identity and Sensory Stimulation. Learn how the Wheel of Joy informs the design thinking of your project team:

• Accomplishment: Design for the unstoppable momentum of life. Help people use small moments in time for chores or entertainment wherever they are. Move from supporting tasks to supporting life.
• Connection: Help people maintain real relationships with regular, spontaneous touch. Help people find conversational content and things to do so they can connect to others online and in person.
• Identity: Support the creation and celebration of self. Help people figure out who they want to be by seeing what others do and think—wherever they are in the life cycle—and then express that identity with joy and fun.
• Sensation: Magnify the cool experience with sensory delight. Hook into people’s core experience of touch, sound, and physical manipulation to create a compelling experience. Or just let them immerse into a sensory world and escape.

The Triangle of Design represents the how. The Triangle of Design outlines the factors which increase or decrease the coolness of a product: Direct into Action, the Hassle Factor and the Delta. Learn how managing these constraints are critical to shipping a cool product:

• Direct into Action: Enable users to go directly from thought to result. Direct products respond like magic to any urge to do, get, find, or see. They feel like an extension of the mind or hand.
• The Hassle Factor: Remove the tool hassles that get in the way of Direct into Action—and don’t add new ones. The Hassle Factor is the evil twin of Direct into Action. Every form, set-up process, wire, or box is a new hassle in the way of your cool value.
• The Delta: Cool builds on what people learned in childhood—touch, talk, move, and later type—and all the technology they learned step by step afterwards. And it changes for each age cohort. Bridge the gap between how the customer interacts with the world now and the technical ability assumed by your product.