Designing for Delight: How to Create Unforgettable Experiences with the D.E.L.I.G.H.T. Method
7-step framework that will help you craft memorable moments and empower the inborn designer in you.
Between October and December 1999, I saved up my daily school allowance, and every few days, I would go to a small, low-cost grocery store named Compas Market to buy popcorn, plastic cups, small bottles of juice, and other things I needed to host a surprise party for my six-year-old sister. During that time, I stored every gift I received that I could use for the party. On December 5, with the help of my mother, I organized one of the most beautiful surprises in my sister’s childhood. Since then, I can’t recall when I wasn’t creating some kind of experience for others.
Dear friend, it’s in this context I am presenting “Delight Design,” a 7-step framework that will help you craft memorable parties, networking sessions, educational programs, group walks, team meetings, and more. Distilled from my decades of experience crafting delightful moments for over 10,000 people, I hope DD will bring out the creative skills of the inborn designer in you.
Have you ever sat through a meeting, training, or a party that drains your energy?
We all have.
What does a party have in common with training or a Zoom meeting?
On the surface, they seem different, but in their essence, they are experiences with the potential to transform our lives, make our day less shitty, or improve our mood. Before we get to the concept, let’s look at the main reason most approach these events with a ritualistic mindset.
Rituals Drown the Essence
In search of consistency, we follow predefined rules when hosting any event, but these rules stifle our creativity and block our sense of curiosity.
The word party automatically evokes music, drinks, and food, so we expect these elements to guarantee a good time. But if Aunt Paula shows up and starts saying the chicken is too salty, shit hits the fan. Having crafted hundreds of experiences in my lifetime, I don’t believe you should leave your best moments to fate or luck. You are allowed to reject the meaningless rules and add your unique creative touch to build an “anchor memory” in someone’s day, week, and even life.
Business and religious people letting loose in rara for the first time,
Women sharing their darkest secrets around a bonfire,
Shy individuals feeling empowered to take the mic as an MC,
Well-known procrastinators completing in 24 hours a project they’ve been procrastinating on for years,
Antisocial individuals hugging strangers,
Shy people taking the mic to sing and dance,
Hopeless individuals regain hope after tragic moments in their lives.
These are all results of the experiences I crafted.
These people would often come to me and say: “This was the best experience of my life,” “This transforms me,” “Wow, I will never forget that.”
Reflecting on these experiences, I was surprised to discover one underlying pattern—delight—so I coined the term “delight design” and developed the acronym D.E.L.I.G.H.T.
So What’s Delight Design?
The word "delight" has its root in the Latin word “delectare,” meaning to charm, to please greatly. Some synonyms include captivate, enchant, and entrance. Delight design is a mode of thinking that focuses on uncovering the key emotions of an experience and crafting moments and activities to evoke those feelings.
When designing for delight, you are trying to answer two key questions:
Which emotions do I want my guests to experience?
What is the right mix of play, activities, people, words, beauty, and surprises that lead to this emotion?
Like an alchemist, DD equips you with a magic wand to craft immersive experiences where your participants, friends, or guests can attain group flow—forgetting their prejudices, their pain, and their issues to surrender to the moment. At least that’s the aim.
Enough said, here’s…
…how to Apply D.E.L.I.G.H.T Design
D. Design an aspirational theme for your experience.
For everything you create—be it writing books, hosting training sessions, or throwing parties—once you discover a theme and distill its essence, the experience is half-crafted.
Here are some questions to help you find a theme (essence):
What do the people I am creating the experience for have in common?
What’s the context and situation driving me to craft this experience?
How can I summarize the experience in a few words that carry profound meaning and invite people to adventure?
Examples:
After the country went into chaos in 2022 and members of the community plunged into despair, we organized an event named “RELIMEN,” meaning relight. I did not have to explain it; the context was clear, and the public’s response made it one of our most memorable events.
When I decided to launch my first productivity course, I interviewed friends and co-workers. After synthesizing their responses, I came up with “Fe Jounen w Konte,” which translates to “Make Your Day Count.” In essence, that’s productivity—it’s not just about time management.
Whether you discover the theme through interviews or observation, the goal is to find something that can guide your decisions and choices as you host that dinner, conduct the training, or start the newsletter. The theme doesn’t have to be shared with your guests; it simply serves as your guiding principle.
Step 2 - Empathize with your participants through conversations or data.
Once you have a theme, you can start interviewing your potential audience to discover their most important wants, needs, limitations, and aspirations. This step will help you identify the common interests among the people you aim to delight. You wouldn’t want to plan a game night if most of your friends prefer outdoor activities or deep conversations. Perhaps someone needs a ride or has to be home by 9 p.m.; finding ways to alleviate those limitations or work around them will ensure a more enjoyable and inclusive experience for everyone.
Examples:
If you discover your audience is not tech-savvy, it’s better to leave them with a printed copy of the presentation rather than send them a PDF.
During our school supplies distribution “PREZAN”, we also cut students’ hair and nails because we knew their other paint points.
Step 3: List crazy ideas to bring your theme to life
Now that you understand their aspirations and limitations, it’s time to think about the two C’s: crazy and creative ideas that can bring your theme to life. Let your imagination run wild, then pick the most practical ones based on your resources. Sure, you might want to host a dinner on an airplane for your wife, but you may need to settle on wearing a pilot costume when you host the dinner at home.
Examples:
In 2019, we closed our 7-day Startup Week with a women’s rara band at Parc Canne à Sucre. Watching business people let loose and dance rara in the rain was memorable, especially since rara is often perceived as something only for the uneducated masses.
At one of our events, we started a story, and before entering the venue each participant took turns adding to it until it evolved into a full, unique narrative of its own.
During our RELIMEN events, we gave everyone a candle and asked them to design it. We then collected the candles and, at the end, invited participants to pick a random candle and meet the person who designed it. The candle became a symbol, reminding them to light it whenever they felt the dark cloud in their minds and hearts.
Step 4: Invite guests to an adventure; prepare Their mindset for delight.
Once your action plan is ready, it’s time to excite your participants and prepare their minds for a transformative experience. A simple text to a friend before dinner to let them know how excited you are to see them, an email, a speech, or a creative video.
Step 5: Gamify the experience by mapping out adventure blocks
Kids like to play, but adults crave experiences that feel like play. In this step, brainstorm ways to gamify the experience you are designing. Play makes people less self-conscious of their differences and creates a communal experience where they forget their worries. View your list of activities or agenda as adventure blocks; each block must serve a purpose.
Examples:
For my 30th birthday, I organized a party where I roasted myself in front of all my dearest friends. I turned my quirkiness and embarrassing moments into jokes, delivering a solid 15-minute comedy set. They laughed at my expense but had a good time.
Once we hosted a networking event where attendees hopped on a tap tap (local taxi) for a tour while meeting each other for the first time and enjoying a beer. The number of people excited to get into the tap tap exceeded the number of tours planned, and the childish grin on everyone’s faces was infectious.
Step 6: Hierarchize Each Block Based on Maslow’s Theory of Needs
Now that you have your adventure blocks, plot them on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goal is to ensure your activities address most of the key human needs. Some needs may have more activities than others. For example, if you’re hosting a food-tasting event, it’s natural to have more activities that cater to physiological needs.
Even if you’re a great speaker, your message won’t resonate if your audience is listening on an empty stomach. People will be on high alert if they don’t feel welcome or if you don’t create moments that satisfy their need for belonging.
Examples:
At Impact Hub Port-au-Prince, the co-working space I co-founded and managed for seven years, we made it a habit to serve a light breakfast before every training session.
A few years ago, I designed a virtual program and, to satisfy participants’ social needs, I asked them to show their neighborhood on Zoom and meet people who lived nearby. We sent them backpacks filled with snacks, t-shirts, a router, a power bank, and other goodies to meet various needs.
During our last Startup Week in 2023, we hosted a networking session where people took selfies, and the pictures appeared on a giant screen in real time. As the photos went up, everyone cheered and shared inside jokes, creating a strong sense of community.
Step 7: Transform the Participants
If you create an immersive adventure, your participants will be transformed. You will have moved them from an ordinary state to a delightful one, turning the experience into an anchor memory in their lives. We all crave enchanting experiences and we are all capable of crafting them.
Conclusion: The Secret Sauce is Synchronization
A beautiful experience is not necessarily a set of great elements, but an ensemble. Like a maestro, the way these elements interact with each other makes great moments. Every experience is an opportunity to wave your creator’s natural magic wand and sprinkle your unique creative spices on the lives of the ones you care about.
Fifteen years ago, I used banana leaves to wrap a gift for a girlfriend—I don’t even remember the gift. But believe me, she was more in love with the wrapping than the gift. She did not want to open it. I consider Airbnb’s Icon project, Kann Restaurant, and Brunello Cucinelli as global expressions of “delight design”. I could share hundreds of examples of how designing to delight others can improve their mood, build stronger relationships, and make them happier. But Maya Angelou said it best:
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That, my friend, is the power of ‘Delight Design.