Esteem: Maslow's hierarchy of needs | UX design

Esteem needs encompass confidence, strength, self-belief, personal and social acceptance, and respect from others.

‘Higher’ and ‘Lower’ Esteem Needs

Maslow distinguished between two different versions of esteem needs, which are the ‘lower’ version and ‘higher’ version. The former is manifested in the actions we take to gain the respect of others, while the latter is the internal need for self-respect. Higher esteem needs might include the desire for physical strength, knowledge, competence, independence, and freedom. Lower esteem needs might include status, recognition, fame, celebrity, prestige, and any form of attention.

Our lower esteem needs are secondary or subordinate to our higher needs, as they rely on an inner strength that we develop over time and with experience. Maslow is only repeating ancient knowledge here — for example, traditional Chinese and Japanese martial arts are not competitive undertakings: they have sought primarily to develop character and inner confidence in the student, emphasizing that the only true “opponent” one has in oneself, the ultimate purpose of studying the art is that one should never actually have to use it.

In society, when we are unable to satisfy one or more of these higher or lower needs, depending on their relative importance to us and the group(s) we are part of, our sense of self-esteem is likely to be affected.

Design and Esteem

While esteem is an internal quality, it is reliant on external reinforcement. We may hold certain views about ourselves and make efforts to boost our confidence, strength, and achievements, but most of us still seek validation from our social groups. Websites and applications have been engineered to satisfy our esteem needs through explicit and sometimes implicit methods. For example, in various online applications, games, and websites you might find one or more of the following:

Gamification elements: Virtual rewards are often given to users when they have completed one or more tasks, such as entering profile details on a dating site or completing levels in an online game. These small, intangible rewards may seem silly to some, but they provide encouragement to continue using a product

Starred reviews: When users leave reviews for products of some sort, other users are frequently able to state whether the review was useful or not.

Likes: Social media has provided us with some of the more explicit examples of approval and validation, one of which is the ‘like’.

Retweets: These are another example of social approval from social media. While retweeting does not always connote approval, this Twitter feature is generally used to show the user feels positive about the other user’s contribution.