Invisibility

A good product is invisible. Any product exists to serve a purpose for its users. I don’t use Google Search just because I want to use Google Search, it is because I want to find some information and Google Search is the best way to do it. Invisibility is not a property of a design principle or a technical implementation. It is determined only by the amount it forces the user to think about the product. In other words, the amount of cognitive load that it places on the user. Consider the example of Google Search. Let’s say I want to find what was the diet of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Before Google, that would have involved:

• Going to a website
• Looking for the search bar in the midst of a crowd of buttons and text, of which many might be flashing
• Entering the text diet of Tyrannosaurus Rex in the search bar
• Clicking the search button
• Waiting some time for the result
• Sifting through the results to find the relevant information

In this process, there were times when my thought flow was broken or paused, for example:

• “Now where do I enter things to search in this page…”
• “Huh.. the circle is spinning, I think it is looking up all the information...”
• “This article looks like an entertainment news article… does not look very informative... let me see if I can find any scientific article…”

Early Yahoo Search Page

Let’s take a look at Google Search. The three things that set Google Search apart in its early days were:

1. Relevance of results
2. Speed of response
3. Clean interface

All of these, in combination, made Google invisible. With Google, now the flow to search became:

• Going to a website
• Entering the text in the search bar
• Clicking the search button
• Clicking on the first result

Now, my thought flow was much more smoother. I think Google Search is still not the ideal product to search for information because not all the steps have been eliminated. Maybe the ideal product will be a computer linked to my brain which would give answers as a thought as soon as I think of a question. This also indicates that sometimes the ideal product is not limited by a technical or design choice, it could be limited by technology or even physics.

Utility

An argument can be made that invisibility makes sense only for products with a clear utility. This is not correct. Take the case of expensive jewelry. A major purpose of luxury goods like jewelry is to signify social status. But let’s say the particular piece of jewelry, though expensive, looks like a cheap knock-off. This can make the wearer think “I spent so much money on this but no one has noticed it. What a waste of money…”. The user has thought about the product. It is not invisible anymore.

Reliability

An invisible product is reliable. A car which breaks down often, will cause its owner to think a lot more about it. On the other hand, an owner of a reliable car will rarely need to think about the car.

Habits

An invisible product reduces cognitive load. This makes it easier to form habits around it. Next time when I have to search for information, I will be using Google Search. After using Google Search for a few times, I will type google.com in the URL bar without even thinking. A habit just got formed. If the expensive jewelry won its wearer appreciation, next time when the occasion warrants, she will just wear that piece without giving it a thought.

Individual

What is invisible to one person may not be invisible to someone else. Instagram is invisible to a teenager while it may not be invisible to an old person. If you don’t know Chinese, a website in Chinese will not be invisible to you.

It seems to me that it is difficult to quantify the amount of Invisibility of a Product. Still, I feel it can be a good compass while thinking about a product. A lot of product development discussions focus either solely on the design aspect or the technical aspect. Invisibility can act as a bridge between the two.