This is the third and final post in a series on what Malcolm Gladwell's Blink can tell us about how people behave online and, by extension, how websites could be better designed to reflect and take advantage of that behavior. Having explained the process of "thin-slicing" and demonstrated the efficacy of snap judgments, Gladwell goes on to discuss their limitations, particularly when applied to marketing efforts that incorporate customer feedback. I'm hardly an expert in user testing, but I think Gladwell's cautionary message is highly relevant to how such feedback is obtained and applied in the web design process.
Introspection Destroys Insight
We often seek to understand users' behavior by asking them to explain what they're doing and why. The underlying assumption is that people can accurately describe their first impressions and their preferences. But Gladwell thinks this approach is entirely wrong:
...[W]hile people are very willing and very good at volunteering information explaining their actions, those explanations, particularly when it comes to the kinds of spontaneous opinions and decisions that arise out of the unconscious, aren't necessarily correct. In fact, it sometimes seems as if they are just plucked out of thin air. [p. 155]
...[W]hat happens is that we come up with a plausible-sounding reason for why we might like or dislike something, and then we adjust our true preference to be in line with that plausible-sounding reason. [p. 181]
The implications are pretty clear: Don't believe everything you hear in a user interview or from a focus group. Gladwell thinks focus groups can actually be counterproductive: In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle's Paul Wilner he said, "[Focus groups] have a conservative bias, and they are a tax on revolutionary ideas, which I think is foolish in this day and age."
But Gladwell began Blink by extolling the virtues of first impressions--what's going on? Is he contradicting himself? No, but he's being careful to explain the circumstances when first impressions can be misleading, and it's important to understand when and why that happens so that we don't rely on them inappropriately.
This Is Only A Test
Philosopher Alford Korzybski said, "A map is not the territory it represents but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness" The same reasoning applies to any user testing scenarios: A test is not the actual experience it's intended to mimic, so be careful about drawing conclusions from user testing data. Gladwell attributes the disastrous launch of New Coke to the fact that Coke badly misinterpreted their test data. Pepsi outperformed original Coke in "sip tests," but actual consumers don't just drink a sip of soda, they drink an entire can. New Coke's test results were better, but it tanked in the real world.
The obvious lesson to be learned here is that even when a test seems identical to actual experience, it's not. There will always be underlying differences, and even if they're as subtle as the difference between taking a few sips of soda and drinking a whole can, they could be sufficient to render test data completely useless. Proceed with caution.
Expertise Matters
Gladwell writes at length about expert food tasters and their unusual ability to articulate the qualities of various foods along many different dimensions. From this he concludes that there are profound differences between what experts and non-experts can tell us about their impressions:
Our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room, and we can't look inside that room. But with experience we become expert at using our behavior and our training to interpret--and decode--what lies behind our snap judgments and first impressions. ... Whenever we have something we are good at--something we care about--that experience and passion fundamentally change the nature of our first impressions. This does not mean that when we are outside our areas of passion and expertise, our reactions are invariably wrong. It just means that they are shallow. They are hard to explain and easily disrupted. They aren't grounded in real understanding. [pp. 183-84]
This resonates with another theme of Korzybski's philosophy: In Piero Scaruffi's synopsis, "We have fewer words and concepts than experiences." Experts overcome this limitation by expanding their vocabulary and by fine-tuning their perceptive apparatus. They're better able to understand their impressions and better able to articulate them than the rest of us.
The implication for any user feedback is that it's essential to understand just who's providing the feedback. Are they an experienced online user or a newbie? Are they familiar with sites like this, or with this particular site? Are they familiar with this particular organization? And the identity of test users needs to be closely mapped to the identity of the organization's current and desired users.
The Package IS The Product
Gladwell cites marketing pioneer Louis Cheskin and his concept of "sensation transference":
Cheskin was convinced that when people give an assessment of something they might buy in a supermarket or a department store, without realizing it, they transfer sensations or impressions they have about the packaging of the product to the product itself. To put it another way, Chesking believed that most of us don't make a distinction--on an unconscious level--between the package and the product. The product is the package and the product combined. [p. 160]
Gladwell amply demonstrates the effect on this concept on physical goods. Ice cream tastes better if it comes in a cylindrical container instead of a rectangular one. Brandy tastes better if it comes in a decanter instead of a wine bottle. Margarine tastes better if it's colored yellow instead of white. Signifiers affect our senses, altering our impressions of the product itself.
But what are the effects on an experience good, like a website? To the extent that we can distinguish between the "product" (i.e. the information and content delivered by a site, and, by extension, the organization itself) and the "packaging" (i.e. the site's graphic design, look-and-feel, and navigational scheme, and the organization's branding), users' perceptions of the latter will have a tremendous impact on the former. Put more simply, design matters. That's hardly a revolutionary idea, but I'm struck by how many organizations, particularly nonprofits, ignore the importance of good design and assume that compelling content will carry the day.
The implication for user feedback is that it's important to be aware of the complicated relationship between "product" and "packaging." What's being tested, the former or the latter? How would different "packaging" affect users' perceptions of the "product"?
A Challenge
Gladwell closes Blink by essentially challenging us to remake our world to take better advantage of first impressions:
Too often we are resigned to what happens in the blink of an eye. It doesn't seem like we have much control over whatever bubbles to the surface from our unconscious. But we do, and if we can control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place, then we can control rapid cognition. [pp. 252-53, Emphasis mine]
Web designers can and should rise to this challenge by recognizing the fundamental importance of users' first impressions and by helping users "thin-slice" to make better, faster decisions. And given the degree to which we can control our online environment--in stark contrast to the battlefields, emergency rooms, and other real-world scenarios discussed in Blink--there are countless low-risk opportunities to put these principles into practice online.
