Covid’s law.
or, remote accessibility is good for users and for businesses in good times and in a pandemic.
I love punny dad jokes. Here’s a fav:
Do you know what Murphy’s law is?
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.Do you know what Newton’s first law is?
An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion.Do you know what Cole’s law is?
Thinly sliced cabbage with mayonnaise.
Love it.
This joke works because it plays on the ubiquity of such common-sense “laws” and how often we refer to them when explaining why things happen or why certain decisions were made. They’re helpful pneumonic reminders of the inevitability of failure and inertia and BBQ sides, respectively.
As a user experience designer, there are a few other laws I call on to inform my work. Notably…
- Hick–Hyman’s law.
The more choices a person has, the longer it takes for that person to make a decision. - Black Mirror’s law.
Anything that can be used for evil will be used for evil. - Spool’s law.
Don’t make users register.
These laws are touchstones designers can use to help create solutions that are good for their users and client business interests.
Given the seismic shift Coronavirus and Covid-19 have forced on the way we live and work, I’d like to suggest a new law. One that deals with the current crisis but which also speaks to long-unsolved user pain points: Covid’s law.
Covid’s law: Anything that can be done remotely should be done remotely.
A few years ago, Google changed their algorithm to deprioritize mobile search results for websites without mobile-friendly interfaces. The result was the overnight shift in how businesses and institutions thought of their mobile websites—instantly, they transformed from being nice-to-haves to must-haves. And, frankly, we’re all better for it. Like nearly all accessibility initiatives, making experiences more mobile-friendly made them better for everyone.
Many design and technology experts had been making the case for mobile-first design for years. But it was Google’s mandate that eventually pressed decision makers and luddites, alike, who’d previously resisted such innovation.
What we’re going through now—with retailers creating curbside pickup options and service providers accommodating touchless services is a similar paradigm shift in how content and goods are delivered. Like the mobile-first transformation, circumstances are pressing companies to make dramatic changes that many consultants and creatives have recommended for years. Except, instead of it being imposed by an inconvenient business entity, it’s imposed by an unavoidable healthcare reality.
Back in February, investing in contact-free services and technologies may have been a nice-to-have. Now, it’s mission critical. And, like mobile websites, it’s something users have pined for since long before the pandemic.
Consider healthcare.
Doctors and hospitals already knew some version of Covid’s law before this pandemic. For years, healthcare practices in the United States have used a variety of remote services to improve customer experience and optimize business costs. These techniques include remote onboarding for new and returning patients, digital health records, pharmacy transmittal, and automated appointment reminders. None of these developments are earth-shattering, in-and-of themselves. But combined—and operating within the strict governance of HIPAA laws—they address user pain points regarding waiting room delays, in-office paperwork, lost paperwork, and prescription adherence.
As a coincidental result of this foundation in remote services, many healthcare providers entered the coronacrisis well-prepared to extend their services to include telehealth. Telehealth, after all, solves the immediate need for touchless service on the part of the medical practice.
But, perhaps unexpectedly, telehealth solves a litany of user pain points completely unrelated to Covid-19, improving the healthcare experience for remote and in-person patients, alike.
Remote patients, served through telehealth solutions, no longer struggle with the difficulties of getting time off work, commutes, paying for parking, waiting room idleness, exam-room idleness, and perceived low value for quick visits. And because not every service or test can be done remotely, patients who still come in for in-person examinations encounter smaller crowds in waiting rooms, get more time with doctors, and a greater perceived value for their face-to-face interactions with healthcare staff.
Consider D&D.
While video games have long embraced remote play, board games and table-top roleplaying games retained an in-person dynamic largely because of their analog form factor. And while a handful of dice-rolling apps have alleviated the need for physical dice, the tactile and social nature of these games is often part of what draws new users to them.
Dungeons & Dragons—by far the oldest and most successful tabletop role playing game—began licensing their content to online service providers years ago. Platforms such as D&D Beyond and Roll20 aimed to make the game easier to play for generations that grew up playing on Xbox instead of pen and paper. As a result, the time-consuming, manual processes of character creation and progression migrated online. As did D&D’s sizable catalog of content. Combined with their notable appearances in Stranger Things and Critical Role, the publisher, Wizards of the Coast, already saw its most profitable year, to date, before the pandemic hit.
These technologies also put the game in a prime position to thrive during the coronacrisis. As new and established users scrambled for way to remain connected to their friends, a whole ecosystem of remote play options sprung up, many leveraging established character management, setting, and dice technologies. And many receiving Wizards of the Coast’s official sanction. As a result, the remaining barriers to entry for this complex game—from learning the systems to collecting content to getting groups together to play—were leveled. And for many players confronting geographic obstacles to play, they were eliminated.
Consider pizza.
Here in Atlanta, the Accardi family opened a pizzeria in The Historic Municipal Market right on the eve of the Great Pause. And while the subsequent shut down in dine-in and retail shopping might’ve ended Carlo’s Pizza’s story there, the owners chose to pivot and thrive.
Realizing they couldn’t compete with well-established delivery brands that were already adapting quickly to the healthcare crisis, the owners of Carlo’s Pizza set their sights on another form of remote pizza: frozen. While delivery pizza has a highly localized range, frozen pizza can ship nationwide. And once Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy plugged their frozen pies, the small family-owned pizza company was overwhelmed with orders. And identified a new business model that should survive the coronacrisis.
Consider your business.
Not every business function can be replaced by a remote interaction. But the pandemic has invited us to reconsider what interactions those might be.
Teams now meet and collaborate through Zoom. As do salespeople and their client-prospects. Online whiteboards like Miro help teams co-work in a shared space. Hosts of virtual showrooms, estimating engines, and ecommerce systems are extending traditional businesses into the remote space because the pandemic demands it. And if these transformations mean I’m less likely to be pressured by a car salesman or if I get to spend less time in waiting rooms, all the better. These are user pain points solved for as an ancillary benefit to a new business requirement. And it’s awesome.
So, how can your business turn the crisis to your advantage? What aspects of your business can be migrated to or complemented by a remote solution? What initiatives had you resisted before the coronacrisis that could save your business, today? We don’t always have the choice when to innovate, but we do control how. And the decision to do so fearlessly to make the future better.
At Sharpen, innovation is our only business.
Sharpen is an omnichannel experience-design agency whose nimble and diverse team of veteran creatives use empathy and design-thinking to create exceptional solutions for real problems.
Our design-thinking approach identifies the sweet spot between business needs, technical requirements, and user insights. And our veteran design teams create those unique experiences for users and customers across any platform. And behind the scenes.
Explore our capabilities and results at www.sharpen.partners.
Then keep up with on Clutch, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Medium.
