The First Step to Help Users Make Good Decisions
Almost all (if not all) of the interactions that the users have with our product, is about decision making. Take Grab — the ride-hailing app — for example. “Should I take a GrabCar (normal car), or should I take a JustGrab (either taxi/normal car, whichever available first — at a slightly cheaper price)?” “Should I share the ride (using GrabShare — a pool service) or not?” “Should I use Grab, or just take a bus?” and some other decision makings. Our job, as the maker — Designer for my case, is to make it easy for the users to make decisions. One good approach is by understanding how people would normally make decision — the steps. I got this from Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice, most good decisions would involve these 5 steps:
- Figure out the goal or goals.
- Evaluate the importance of each goal.
- Array the options.
- Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet the goals, then pick the winning option.
- Use the consequences of the choice to modify the goals, importance the person assign to them, and the way he/she evaluates future possibilities.
How would knowing these steps help you in designing an experience that helps users to make decisions — good ones? You know the first step: You need to figure out users goals. Do some research to find out about these goals. Spend more time — in the beginning, to understand users more, through some user research activities, like 1-on-1 interview or field study. Don’t jump straight into providing options/solutions. Once you understand and are able to figure out users goals, then you can think of options that might meet the goals.