Flow talks

Flow is the state of being fully absorbed in an activity, so focused that time seems to pass unnoticed. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described it as arising when a task has clear goals, gives immediate feedback and offers a challenge that matches a person’s skill: too easy and people get bored, too hard and they get anxious.

The idea is useful in product design because it describes the conditions under which people do their best work and enjoy it. Products that remove friction, give clear feedback and help people build skill over time make flow more likely, which is one reason game design draws on the concept so heavily.

Two talks sit in this topic. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi himself presents “Flow, the secret to happiness” at TED in 2008. Kathy Sierra’s “Badass: Making Users Awesome” was recorded at Mind the Product in 2016. Related topics include happiness, motivational design and cognitive psychology.