I’ve been setting aside some of my free time to either watch talks or read books about design. Last weekend, I watched a recorded talk from An Event Apart called “Designing for Trust in an Uncertain World.”
To me, the gist was about how we can make people feel smart and confident about their decisions. People see many inconsistencies in the world—from politicians who flip-flop on issues to companies who say one thing but do the exact opposite. As a result, people have become skeptical and even cynical. Inconsistency undermines trust, she says.
Because of this, people are starting to look inward: they’re making decisions based on what they believe in. Since people are looking inward for information, maybe we can meet them there, informing and persuading them on their terms. Here are the three tools that we can use to do that:
Voice
Champion familiarity over precision and consistency over novelty.
Example: When Mailchimp released a suite of e-commerce services, they didn’t want to alienate their long-time customers. They didn’t want people to worry and to feel like they would get lost in the shuffle. So they continued to make themselves vulnerable and open and fun, which was consistent with Mailchimp’s way of communicating. They went further and also opened up a store to tell people what they’re learning along the way while using their own e-commerce tools. This brand consistency made people more familiar and confident about the future of Mailchimp.
Volume
Offer enough detail to convey a complete story and make the user feel smart.
Example: America’s Test Kitchen creates a lot of content. They want to empower people whether they’re novices who are trying to get something right the first time, or experts who want to learn more about the history and chemistry of a dish. You can get the short, pithy version, or the long, deep read on a recipe.
Another example: Gov.uk has the opposite problem: too much content. So people end up going somewhere else online to understand gov’t services and information. (I do the same when I’m on IRS.gov. I feel like I need to search online to summarize things for me.) They since reduced the amount of content, getting people to stick around instead of shying away from the official sources.
Vulnerability
Compare, don’t exclude, and prototype in public to work with users, not for them.
Example: Buzzfeed opened themselves up to feedback when they were working on their newsletter. Similar to what Mailchimp did when they publicly dogfooded their own e-commerce product, they made themselves vulnerable to their audience and involved them in the process.
Up Next
Here’s what I’m planning on doing next: