by Growth.Design Inc.
Make just enough change at once so users are not completely thrown off.
Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) was one of the first people to approach the study of the human response to a physical stimulus in a quantitative fashion.
In other words, Weber studied how people reacted to change, all kinds of changes; sound, weight, vision. In products, this law is only there to keep us in check on how we should deliver new releases, for example. If you throw too many new features all at once, users may reject the new changes even if it's for the best.
Insight 1 of 10
Aesthetically pleasing designs are often perceived as being easier to use.
That feeling of "intuitiveness" usually comes from two places: familiarity or ease of use. Also, it's more than possible that ease of use comes directly from aesthetic. Building great products with seamless UX also means building beautiful products! In the case of Calm, a big part of their aesthetics comes from imagery and simplicity. Less, sometimes, is more!
Next time your team is hesitating to bring in some delight in the user interface, remind them that the simple trick of making it beautiful can solve many usability issues.
Insight 2 of 10
Branding is how people see and think about your company, make sure yours fits with your users.
Insight 3 of 10
☔️ Problem: Meditation is slowly going mainstream. To share a meditation session, you have to link a generic life coaching style quote with a stock image.
💡 Potential Solution: Give different styling choices when people want to share a meditation session. It could be as simple as different plain colors. Cool typography and colors can go a long way!
⚙️ Success Metric for this experiment: Number of shares by new users
We are more likely to engage in activities in which meaningful achievements are recognized.
Insight 4 of 10
“Random“ rewards make powerful motivators; they seem scarce and unpredictable. We're more motivated to reach a goal with an uncertain reward. Think about gambling, lottery, games, etc. These are all systems that are built to hook you only because of the unpredictability of what's about to happen. The routine is always the same (or most often than not) but the reward at the end changes. That's the key.
In Calm, they also do a great job with their daily calm. Every time, I open the app, I'm curious to see what will be the daily session's topic!
Timing is everything, especially when you want users to accomplish something specific.
Wouldn't it be nice if users always took the right path, did the right action when prompted, and answered your questions when asked? Unfortunately, the reality is very different. However, with the right timing, you can accomplish anything.
The best moment to pull the trigger is when the users just finished achieving its goal, and they feel like they just earned a new superpower from your product. That's the moment. But be careful, if you don't ask for the right thing, they might churn quickly. To be used with parsimony!
Insight 5 of 10
Understanding what people like about your product is just as important as understanding what they dislike.
Insight 6 of 10
☔️ Problem: Right now, only feedback around how to improve is gathered through thoughtful categories. Why not do the same for positive feedback?
💡 Potential Solution: Replace generic questions with these:
⚙️ Success Metric for this experiment: Quality of feedback received.
Our gadgets and apps are more persuasive than ever. Yet for the makers of these technologies, few guidelines exist on how to change user behavior ethically.
Insight 7 of 10
We've come to master behavioral psychology in digital products. We are building apps that are more addictive than ever. It has become a social problem where people spend too much time on their phones, slowly eliminating human interactions. Now it's time for the creators to ask ourselves some ethical questions.
“If people knew everything the product designer knows, would they still execute the intended behavior? Are they likely to regret doing this?”
We use this term in design to describe interface objects that mimic their real-world counterparts in how they appear or, how you can interact with them.
Back in 2008, it was such a big trend in the design world that like all trends, it slowly died off. People wanted new interfaces; minimalists, and crisp.
Today, Skeuomorphism is still a powerful tool to help designers convey a clear intent as to what an object means or how to use it. Just like in this image on the right. Everyone can recognize that a password "unlocks" your account. This technique is a great way to build clear signifiers for your product.
Insight 8 of 10
People Don't Buy Products;
They Buy A Better Version Of Themselves
Insight 9 of 10
Nobody cares about your product nor your company. People want to become better at what they do. They want to feel strong, smart, healthy, agile, etc. If you try to sell them what features your product has, they won't pay attention.
That rings true especially when you're writing copy for your product. Put yourself in the customer's shoes: What do they feel? What do they desire? What are they struggling with? Only then, you'll be able to unlock the best copy you've ever written!
If users are not sufficiently activated to experience the benefits of the app in the first few seconds/minutes, we’ll likely churn and uninstall.
Insight 10 of 10
☔️ Problem: When referring a friend to Calm, the app asks for an account to be created first. That can potentially drastically reduce the chance of a person to try the app.
💡 Potential Solution: Bring them inside the app so they can try at least one meditation before asking them to "redeem" the Gift of Calm!
⚙️ Success Metric for this experiment: Referral conversion
By Louis-Xavier
I'm an engineer who got bored and went back to school to master my passion; Design. The more you dig into design, the closer to human psychology you get. Hopefully, these case studies will help you build empathy to create more humane experiences.
