Leveraging User Psychology for Products

The Social Psychology checklist for products and PMs
Part 1  

Did you know that most Anti-smoking campaigns work in favour of cigarette companies? It's because Anti-smoking campaigns triggers the urge to smoke. This and many other studies startle us how our subconscious mind leads us to taking decisions that are not strictly logical. 

I was quite intrigued by these facts and the more I studied social psychology, the more I figured how less we know about our own biases and about those of our users. I penned down some notes to understand some common biases better and also how as a Product guy I can leverage some of them to create engaging products. 

You can take this quick test to evaluate how you fair, or read the blog and then continue with the test.    

1. Does it provide instant gratification? 

It is the #1 engaging characteristic you can add to your products. For anything that you asked your user to do, user should be able to perceive a clear and immediate return. E.g. WhatsApp - User sets-up the app and his network is ready. LinkedIn - user enters past organisation/institutes, starts finding very relevant people they know and can add to their network. Quickly gratify a users curiosity and they are hooked.

2. Are the most simple features the most useful? Or Can you make the most useful feature most simple?
Because of 'Salience bias' users will try out the most easily recognizible thing first and base their impression out of that. Many a times your product may have 'n' great features and they all work awesome. But what is it that user is going to try first? Most likey the simplest, most easily gettable feature. That also happens to be the least cared for (poorly implemented/tested) feature. Make sure the simplest feature works best and is highlighted enough to be used first. Make sure the complexity unlocks after purchase, not before that.

3. Does it look like a winner? (Stereotyping Bias) 
If it looks like a duck, it is a duck. People stereotype things. If it looks like a winner, talks like a a winner, it is a winner. Subconsciously users base their decisions on the way things look and feel. That's Stereotyping. If the product looks edgy, even if it works awesome, people may find it hard to make a purchase. Because their first impression was negative, and mind wants to keep first impressions. This is particularly true for products that require users to make 'purchase' decisions without spending lot of trial time with the product. We can use Stereotyping in our favour by aping the tone, finesse, clarity of winning products.

4. Illusion of Control 
Give enough options so that user knows they have complete control over the way product works or behaves. They are seldom going take control in their hands. They are going to use automatic operations most often. But, they'd choose to go automatic only when they know they have an option to un do it. Also, in exceptional case product should be able to help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors. Make users feel smart - if there is anything they do not understand, internally they feel less confident and externally end up blaming the system as too complex.

5. Does it stick to conventions
We talk about innovation, and people crave innovation. But they seek innovation in output. They do not want to change their habits. The status-quo bias. The best and most intuitive flow in your favor would be the one that people are used to. User delights comes from the fact that they do the same thing and get different results. However, if the path is unconventional there has to be a much bigger reward. That's what would make user feel like a hero. More about it in Outcome bias.

6. Does End result justify the path taken? 
PMs and designers can use Outcome bias to their favour. If there is a complexity that a user has to go through and there are no work arounds, just make sure that the outcome of it is nothing less than delightful. If the Outcome is clearly great your users will end up justifying the tedious road taken. So, if there is an unavoidable complexity, make sure you reward the user in the end, have them enjoy their moment of joy - or else get ready to be hated.

Pricing:

Is the pricing commensurate to one most important problem being solved? 

It cannot be based on number of features, because of scope insensitivity. It can only be based on one important, most needed feature that solves the most important (however small) problem for the user. Small problem = small price, Big problem = big price. Rest of the features are simply discounted. 

Did you take this quick test?
Thoughts? Questions?