Flow or flow state is a positive psychology concept which is informally termed as “being in the zone”.

<aside> ℹ️ It occurs when you are completely engaged in a certain activity that you may even forget the time and other factors. Being in a state of flow results to feelings of happiness and accomplishment. For instance, an artist is so immersed in his art that he did not notice that he has already been painting for four hours.

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This concept was developed in 1975 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist. It's important to distinguish flow from "hyper-focus," which involves spending excessive time on activities, such as compulsive video gaming. While flow is a positive mental state characterized by healthy engagement, hyper-focus isn't always considered beneficial.

The term "flow" evokes smooth, directional movement. In human cognition, it arises from focused attention, deep engagement, and a sense of mastering challenges. During flow, the outside world seems to vanish and time loses meaning. Senses sharpen, awareness heightens. When these elements converge, people often describe the experience as incredibly productive and creative.

Don Norman describes designs that promote flow as “behavioral.”

This is true usability, as the interface and interaction elements fade from the user’s awareness. To give the user flow is an exercise in subtlety. A design has to string together dozens or hundreds of what Bill Scott calls interesting moments that you don’t really want users to notice. You have to build an unconscious design that is consistently frictionless.

You’re not just mechanically getting the user to the next step. You have designed in particular stimuli to elicit specific responses, such as psychological or linguistic cues that make people behave a certain way. When a design does this successfully, even for dull, work-related tasks, a user’s experience may be transformed as she begins to feel appropriate challenge, control, and productivity.

The Feeling of Flow

1. Complete focus on what you’re working on
2. A sense of ecstasy — an out of the world feeling
3. Inner Clarity — knowing exactly what your goals are and the process to achieve it
4. Having the skills required to successfully complete the task
5. Sense of Serenity — where you don’t feel anxious or worried
6. Timelessness — speaks for itself
7. Deep intrinsic motivation — personally rewarding

Resources

7 steps to achieving flow in UX design

Beyond Task Completion: Flow in Design