I’m starting to think that managing expectations are the most important aspect of a great digital product experience.
I was reading through OneCart’s reviews and saw one that reads as follows:
This reminds me of a poster I once read in my Sales class “formula for success: under-promise, over-deliver.” – Unknown
In UX, principles are a great place to start
In his book “The design of everyday things,” Don Norman describes the principle of discoverability as follows:
“It is possible to determine what actions are possible and the current state of the device.”
– Don Norman
I think of this principle like this: at all times, the user should be able to see the past, present, and potential future state of a digital product.
What that meant in the case of OneCart was for the user to be informed of an accurate calculation of the progress of delivery (4 days, rather than 1 day).
But, why should you care about managing expectations?
If you think of it, this issue touches on multiple human principles but two particularly stand out to me: transparency and control.
Transparency – humans value transparency and honesty. If you break something of mine, let me know. I won’t be happy that it’s broken, but I’ll be grateful that you were transparent. That action will most likely leave a positive mark on me.
Control – knowing when, what, or where something is happening gives me the ability to arrange my life accordingly. A perceived sense of control comes from knowing that when you click on the recycle bin, your item will be deleted, as opposed to it just automatically being deleted.
Sidenote: That's also why things like Explainable Artificial Intelligence are of such importance. Cognitive psychology informs us that humans thrive on explanations, e.g. why are you recommending that I purchase that product? Because "other shoppers like you bought that product." If I know the why, I can find it easier to trust you.
How a simple explanation makes it easier to pay
Occasionally, my nephew was allowed to wear his private (civvies) clothes to school. The only catch was that he was required to pay a fee.
Now, someone still needs to explain the logic of expecting me to pay a fee for me to wear the clothes I already purchased but, we move.
Anyway, I used to ask questions such as:
- Where is this money going?
- Why is the civvies fee so high?
- Why should my nephew even partake in this?
Every streak of hesitation and doubt fell away when the school did one seemingly simple thing: they provided an explanation: the school sent out letters letting parents know each of the fundraising activities that would take place throughout the year, and how the funds would be used to develop the school.
Let’s wrap it up in style
Users have expectations – on a minimum level, they expect the product will work as you said it would. Our responsibility then is to manage these expectations and avoid having disgruntled users. We can do this by providing constant, transparent communication that lets the user know what’s happening at each stage of their digital journey.
I also previously shared a post on LinkedIn about what makes Takealot’s experience so good. Read here.
