0, 1, 2, 3 – The Future of Consumer Psychology
My friend and longtime business partner Herwig Konings recently sent me a link to a TedxTalk presented by his uncle, Herman Konings, in Belgium. You can see not only Herman’s optimistic personality in the talk, but more importantly his ability to understand the psychology of consumers as they interact with new technology next 5-10 years.
He struck a chord with my work on Glider as he mentioned “Information Overload”, a term coined over four hundred years ago at Oxford. He described common psychological problems today, including “option paralysis”, which is when people begin hyperventilating because they have too many options and not enough time to choose. Herman goes on to say that the results of “Filter failure” are causing common psychological disorders such as “Phantom Vibration” — When you think someone is calling your phone but it’s actually idle.
He proposes a solution to information overload on open communication platforms such as the smartphone: simple choice architecture. And by “choice architecture” he means that consumers will depend on and be most satisfied with products that execute on the basics:
0 – No manual.
1 – One button to start.
2 – Two options to choose from.
3 – Three seconds to have your problem solved.
0, 1, 2, 3. This choice architecture is the basics for the technology of tomorrow.
