Product Thinking Podcast — Episode 249: Moving Beyond Function in Product Management with Nesrine Changuel

Date: October 1, 2025
Host: Melissa Perri
Guest: Nesrine Changuel, Product Coach, Trainer, and Author

Overview

This episode dives deep into the concept of product delight—how truly loved products balance functionality with emotional connection, elevating their experience beyond mere utility. Melissa Perri is joined by Nesrine Changuel, who shares insights from her new book, "Product Delight," recounts lessons from her time at Google, Microsoft, and Spotify, and provides actionable frameworks for product leaders eager to create unforgettable, meaningful user experiences.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Nesrine’s Career Journey and Origins of "Product Delight"

• Nesrine’s background: Former researcher in signal processing and video compression; transitioned from Bell Labs research to product roles at Skype, Spotify, and Google.
• Why "Product Delight": Having developed "loved" products, Nesrine noticed consistent, teachable techniques behind success—not just brand magic or resources. She left Google to codify those insights in a book and make them widely actionable.
  • Quote: “These products or these companies are successful because they know...how to create delightful and successful products. So my goal was...creating a book and...a theory where people can benefit from these techniques.” (03:55)

Defining "Product Delight"

• Product delight means creating a technical product that fulfills both functional and emotional needs. Emotional connection isn’t an afterthought or aesthetics—it’s engineered into the heart of product features.
  • Quote: “The best successful products...create this deep emotional connection while serving for functional and productive needs.” (05:21)
• Big misconceptions: People often view delight as a luxury or visual "confetti"—Nesrine refutes this, declaring it essential for differentiation and retention.

Three Pillars of Delight (07:00)

• Removing friction: Streamlining the journey, eliminating pain points.
• Anticipating needs: Predicting what users want before they ask.
• Exceeding expectations: Surprising users by going further than expected.
  • Example: Revolut, a fintech app, continually surprises with unexpected, useful features (e.g., instant eSIM purchasing while abroad).

Motivational Segmentation (09:00)

• Move beyond demographic and behavioral segmentation—focus on why users use your product.
• Functional motivators (e.g., “I want to find a song”), and emotional motivators (e.g., “I want to feel less lonely”).
  • Quote: “The most important and impactful segmentation is motivational segmentation...you segment your users based on why they use your product.” (09:09)

Example (Google Meet during COVID) (11:15)

• Deep research into the emotional impact of remote work: boredom, low interaction, “Zoom fatigue.”
• Features like background blur (functional), emoji reactions, and minimized self-view (emotional)—all addressing core motivators and reducing fatigue.
  • Quote: “Our brain and our eyes are so automatically drawn into seeing our self reflection. So we allowed for self minimized self view just to...reduce that fatigue...” (13:00)

Measuring Delight

• Go beyond NPS: Google’s HATS (Happiness Tracking Survey) tracks user happiness over time, not just at one moment.
  • Quote: “We even had a metric called HATS...an in-product survey where we actually track happiness.” (18:10)
  • Importance of tracking for habituation—delight fades as users get used to features, so continuous monitoring is essential.
• Iterative improvement: Example with Google Meet’s background features—progression from static images to AI-generated personalized backgrounds, learning from user feedback at every step.

Nesrine’s Methodology for Designing Delight

1. The Delight Grid (22:38)

• Make a matrix with functional motivators (Y-axis) and emotional motivators (X-axis).
• Assess features:
  • Low Delight: Satisfies only a functional motivator
  • Surface Delight: Satisfies only an emotional motivator
  • Deep Delight: Satisfies both
• Goal: Balance your roadmap—Nesrine recommends 50% Low Delight, 40% Deep Delight, 10% Surface Delight.
  • Example: Spotify’s “Wrapped” is Surface Delight; improved search is Low Delight; Discover Weekly is Deep Delight.

2. The Delight Excellence Checklist (31:50)

• Validates that features not only fit user and business needs but also:
  • Are non-distracting
  • Are non-harmful
  • Are inclusive across emotional contexts and users
• Story: Airbnb uses confetti meaningfully to celebrate “superhost” status, validating the user’s effort (“I feel like the app is recognizing my effort and...something I’ve been doing my best to achieve.”) (33:05)
• Cautionary tale: Deliveroo’s insensitive Mother's Day notification (mimicking a missed call from "mom") illustrates how neglecting inclusivity can backfire—emotional triggers can be unpredictable and even painful. (35:58)

Delight in B2B and B2C Contexts

• Delight is NOT just for consumer (B2C) products—Nesrine advocates “B2H” (Business to Human).
• Major B2B companies (e.g., GitHub, Atlassian, Dropbox) intentionally design for delight, sometimes under different names—e.g., Dropbox’s "Cupcake" pillar, GitHub’s internal “DUDF” metric (Delight Usability Utility Product-market Fit).
  • Quote: “If the product is used by human beings, then they deserve their emotion to be honored...we need to include their emotional needs into the solution that we are addressing.” (27:00)

Challenges and Opportunities with AI in Product Development (36:47)

• AI accelerates functional development, but currently struggles to address nuanced emotional needs.
  • Concern: Without deliberate human input, products risk becoming overly “robotic” and delight becomes commoditized.
  • Quote: “AI is...improving the functional side...However...AI is currently...not addressing very well the emotional needs...” (36:47)
• Responsibility of product teams is to uphold emotional connection—“Don’t let the world become only functional.”

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On motivational segmentation:
  “It's really important when you do this motivational segmentation, you identify the functional motivators...but also the emotional motivators so that we can create solutions that honor both.” (09:47)
• On avoiding shallow delight:
  “The reason why I wrote this book is of course to break the myth...that delight is the confetti effect. I'm not a big fan of confetti...unless there is a reason.” (30:45)
• On inclusivity:
  “When we talk about emotions, what makes me happy is not necessarily what makes you happy...we are not experiencing these kinds of things the same way.” (35:58)
• On AI and the future of delight:
  “This is going to accelerate functionality and our responsibility is to make sure that the emotions are part of this whole experience.” (37:51)
• Career advice:
  “My biggest contribution...came from having a clear why...when you become so expert in the why, that's where you become a better PM.” (41:20)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:05 — Nesrine’s career journey and motivation for “Product Delight”
• 04:52 — Defining product delight and why it matters
• 06:44 — Three pillars of delight and practical examples
• 09:09 — Motivational segmentation: moving beyond demographics and behavior
• 11:15 — Real-world application: Google Meet during the pandemic
• 16:59 — Measuring delight: HATS and beyond NPS
• 22:38 — The Delight Grid: Categorizing Delight
• 31:50 — The Delight Excellence Checklist and importance of meaningful delight
• 35:58 — Inclusivity & cautionary tales (Deliveroo’s notification misstep)
• 36:47 — AI, functionality overdrive, and the risk to emotional design
• 38:52 — Emotional insights in product—Chrome’s tab management user research

Conclusion & Resources

Nesrine Changuel urges product leaders to elevate their practice: blend emotion deeply with function, methodically consider user motivators, measure happiness over time, avoid shallow gestures, and take particular care with inclusivity. The ability to create delight is becoming a critical differentiator, especially as AI commoditizes baseline product features.

Resources:

• Product Delight (Book)
• ProductDelightBook.com
• Nesrine’s newsletter: Delight Tips (Substack)

For full show notes and links, visit productthinkingpodcast.com.