So (and I’m certain this is implicitly understood around here already): first make sure you build the thing right, and then look into adding stuff like this.

In our EE Glossary, we have several funny definitions and humorous touches in otherwise staid application notes. The CONTACT US link on each page is the schematic symbol for a a switch (a ‘contact’) — it’s an electrical engineering joke. Trust me, they laugh so hard they drop their slide rules into their Jolt Cola.

What does it accomplish?

Branding!

Our company seems a bit more clever, a lot more human, and more memorable.

Whimsy strikes me as a great way to give your app character. Macs have this in spades with the little animations here and there, like the genie effect when a window’s minimized.

I do try and put a “fairy door” in my design…not ALWAYS literaly.

PS. Whimsy DOES have a function.

Where’s the value? Although customers can select a character to represent themselves, perhaps it would have been more beneficial to provide them with the ability to choose a mower from the product catalog. Then at least customers could envision themselves “enjoying” the mowing experience using a variety of mower types. Maybe even compare size, sound or style?

Does this really engage or enlighten the customer? Will I return to Sears ready to play their newest game to break up my day? Loading the washing machine, perhaps? I think designers will need to weigh the value of fairy doors like these against the risks (e.g. customer off task) and the resources (e.g. dollars, resources, long meetings debating squirrel comps).

Geez, maybe I should go out and mow the lawn to cool down.

These were so well received that when the map was optimized to load faster, people complained that they missed the messages!

I’m thinking, in an interactive environment, fairy doors don’t have to take up space. They are just something things that bring a smile to the user. It can be as simple as a little animation transition when a button is clicked or option is chosen.

Skype, for example, doesn’t have the usual beeps when it wants your attention. Instead, the noises are, at least to me, cute little swooshes and boops. Each time I hear them, I grin. In that way, they are a fairy door to me.

In the real world, there is a lot of leftover space — walls with nothing on them, in this case. In software we’re frequently tasked with fitting too much information into not enough space. Do we really have room to spare for non-functional whimsy?

I’d like to believe we do but I’m skeptical. I’d love to see examples of interfaces where this has been done effectively.