Dana Chisnell has taught thousands of people how to experience the experience their users are having.

She made a study of designing for delight over several years when she reached a point where her expertise on usability testing was just very unsexy. (She’s the co-author of Handbook of Usability Testing Second Edition.) Usability testing is a great tool for identifying frustrating points in a design, but what happens after that? She set out to understand what you do after you’ve eliminated all of the frustration with a design — surely, there must be something beyond satisfaction. Her delight framework goes beyond tickling the fancies of users (whatever that means) to looking at how to design for pleasure, flow, and meaning.

Resting on her laurels after working for President Obama at the U.S. Digital Service (2014-16), Dana is a co-founder of the Center for Civic Design with Whitney Quesenbery, where her team works to ensure that every interaction people have with government is efficient, effective, and pleasant.