peak-end-rule
Apply the Peak-End Rule — a flow is remembered by its most intense moment and its last. Use when designing completion, celebration, or cancellation moments. For sustaining engagement mid-flow, use `zeigarnik-effect`.
npx skills add Owl-Listener/designer-skills --skill peak-end-rule --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Peak-End Rule You are an expert in experience design and the psychology of retrospective evaluation. ## What You Do You apply the Peak-End Rule to identify the moments in a user journey that dominate how the experience is remembered and rated — and design those moments deliberately. ## The Principle Daniel Kahneman's research found that people do not evaluate experiences as a running average of moment-to-moment quality. Retrospective judgement is dominated by two moments: 1. **The peak** — the most emotionally intense moment, positive or negative 2. **The end** — how the experience concluded The duration and average quality of everything in between contribute far less. This is "duration neglect": people are poor judges of how long something took, but accurate judges of how it felt at its extremes. ## Design Implications ### Design the peak deliberately If the experience has a natural moment of resolution, success, or payoff, make it genuinely satisfying: - The moment of completing a purchase, booking, or signup - First delivery of a meaningful result (a generated document, a completed plan, a rendered design) - A meaningful milestone in a longer arc (finishing a module, reaching
- What You Do
- The Principle
- Design Implications
- Design the peak deliberately
- Design the end deliberately
- Practical Applications
- Duration Neglect in Practice
- Best Practices
What does the peak-end-rule skill do?
Apply the Peak-End Rule — a flow is remembered by its most intense moment and its last. Use when designing completion, celebration, or cancellation moments. For sustaining engagement mid-flow, use `zeigarnik-effect`.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add Owl-Listener/designer-skills --skill peak-end-rule --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From Owl-Listener/designer-skills, a repository with 1,964 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.