> **Additional context needed**: the brand's emotional range.

Make the experience memorable at moments that earn it. Delight is not a layer of generic whimsy; it is product character revealed through a useful interaction, a humane response, or an unexpectedly considered detail.

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## Visitor mode

- **Persuade + Experience:** personality may run through voice, composition, motion, and discovery, provided the artifact remains the focus.
- **Operate + Read:** concentrate delight at meaningful moments such as first use, completion, recovery, or mastery. Reliability carries everything else.

## Find the opportunity

Inspect the target, DESIGN.md, product voice, repeated-use frequency, and emotional context. Look for:

- effort worth acknowledging;
- waiting that can become informative;
- an empty or first-use state that can orient;
- an error or recovery moment that needs empathy;
- an interaction whose physical or verbal response could express the brand;
- a useful capability people might enjoy discovering.

Do not manufacture a celebration for an ordinary click. Ask only when the brand's emotional range or the stakes cannot be inferred.

## Define one delight thesis

State in one sentence what the user should feel and why that feeling belongs to this product. Then choose the smallest system that can deliver it:

- a distinctive response to a meaningful action;
- product-specific language that clarifies while carrying voice;
- an interaction or transition with a recognizable material behavior;
- an illustration, sound, haptic, or environmental detail grounded in the product world;
- a discovery reward that reveals real utility.

Derive the treatment from product mechanism and visual world, not a stock catalog.

## Build for the emotional moment

- **Success:** match the response to the effort and consequence. Major milestones can expand; routine saves should simply feel certain.
- **Waiting:** show truthful progress, useful context, or product-specific activity. Never fake work or delay completion to stage a flourish.
- **Empty and first use:** make the next action clear before adding personality.
- **Error and recovery:** lead with the problem and recovery. Warmth may reduce stress; jokes must not trivialize loss, money, privacy, or blocked work.
- **Repeated interaction:** keep the response satisfying after the hundredth use. Variation is useful only when it remains coherent and predictable enough to trust.
- **Discovery:** reward curiosity without hiding required functionality.

Copy must use the product's language. Generic whimsy is worse than neutral clarity.

## Protect the experience

Delight must not:

- delay, block, or obscure the primary task;
- override platform conventions or accessibility;
- add unrequested factual claims;
- play sound without consent or ignore mute settings;
- become mandatory, unskippable, or exhausting on repeat;
- add a dependency or asset cost disproportionate to the moment.

For authored motion, load [animate.md](animate.md). Respect screen readers, keyboard use, touch, localization, and cultural context. Nonessential loops stop when hidden. Make celebration intensity proportional to frequency and consequence.

## Verify

- The moment is specific enough that a neighboring product could not use it unchanged.
- It improves comprehension, confidence, motivation, or emotional recovery.
- The interface remains fast and obvious without the flourish.
- Repetition does not turn charm into friction.
- Muted, keyboard, touch, and localized paths work.
- The result feels like the selected world, not a generic “delight” treatment.

When the personality feels earned, hand off to `$impeccable polish` for the final pass.
