微處理 (Microprocessing)

In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today to give you a better tomorrow.

在 微處理中 ，專欄作家Angela Lashbrook的目標是每周改善與技術的關系。 微處理深入探討了定義您今天的在線生活的小事情，從而為您帶來更美好的明天。

Whenever a popular web interface gets any kind of significant visual change, a lot of people react with confusion, dismay, and even anger. This month, it’s the new Google Docs sharing interface: The Next Web wrote an entire piece detailing complaints about the new sharing menu. One podcaster says she “just doesn’t like it,” and others are “completely baffled.”

w ^ henever一個流行的Web界面得到任何顯著的視覺變化，很多人困惑，沮喪，甚至憤怒React。 本月，它是新的Google文檔共享界面： The Next Web撰寫了整篇文章，詳細介紹了有關新共享菜單的投訴。 一位播客說她“只是不喜歡它”，而其他播客則“ 完全困惑” 。

Though the obvious reason people react so negatively to product redesigns and updates appears straightforward enough — people dislike change — the mechanisms behind why people get so frustrated, and what designers and companies have to do to mitigate that anger, is more complicated.

盡管人們對產品重新設計和更新做出如此消極React的明顯原因似乎很簡單(人們不喜歡變更)，但人們為什么如此沮喪以及設計師和公司為減輕這種憤怒而必須采取的行動背后的機制卻更加復雜。

One theory, the “endowment effect,” helps explain this aversion to the new. It posits that people prefer what they already have, regardless of the benefits they may gain from adopting something new, because they are afraid of what they might lose. A 1990 study, one of the first to provide evidence for the idea, helps illustrate how it works. The study separated participants into three groups. The first group was given a choice between two objects: a mug or a chocolate bar. The group was more or less evenly split between their choices. A second group was given mugs, but they were allowed to later exchange it for a chocolate bar if they so desired. A third group was given a chocolate bar and likewise allowed to later switch it out for a mug.

一種理論，即“ effect賦效應”，有助于解釋這種對新事物的厭惡。 它假定人們更喜歡自己已經擁有的東西，而不管采用新事物可能帶來的好處，因為他們擔心自己會失去什么。 1990年的一項研究 (第一個為該想法提供證據的研究)有助于說明其原理。 該研究將參與者分為三組。 第一組在兩個對象之間進行選擇：杯子或巧克力棒。 小組或多或少地在他們的選擇之間平均分配。 第二組被給了杯子，但是如果他們愿意的話，他們可以稍后再換成巧克力棒。 第三組被分配了一塊巧克力棒，同樣允許后來將其換成杯子。

The two latter groups largely refrained from switching out their original items for something new, despite the first group being evenly split on what they went with. The researchers gathered from this experiment that even though people may equally prefer two items if presented with them simultaneously, they’ll almost always prefer the item they already have when offered something new later.

后兩個小組在很大程度上避免了將自己的原始物品換成新東西的做法，盡管第一個小組對所使用的物品進行了平均分配。 研究人員從該實驗中收集到，即使人們可能同時偏愛兩個物品，但在以后提供新物品時，他們幾乎總是會偏愛他們已經擁有的物品。

Thus the “endowment effect” — people favor what they’re already “endowed” with over what they could have instead. Another, relevant theory is known as the “status quo effect,” which says people prefer what they’re already familiar with versus something new, even when there’s a strong possibility that the new thing could dramatically improve their lives. It is, quite simply, easier to stick with what you know than adapt to what you don’t; adopting a new technology means you need to disrupt your workflow and take the time and energy to learn something new. The lazy approach (which, to be clear, most people take) is to stay with the old, crappy version.

因此，“ end賦效應”-??人們偏愛他們本來可以“擁有”的東西，而不是他們本可以擁有的東西。 另一種相關的理論被稱為“狀態效應”，即人們更喜歡自己已經熟悉的事物而不是新事物，即使新事物很有可能極大地改善他們的生活。 很簡單，堅持自己知道的事情比適應自己不知道的事情容易。 采用新技術意味著您需要中斷工作流程，并花費時間和精力來學習新知識。 懶惰的方法(很顯然，大多數人會采用這種方法)是保留舊的，version腳的版本。

So, even if the change to Google Docs was objectively better than what everyone had before, people were still going to be pissed off, because they’re naturally inclined to prefer what they already had. Looking at it from another angle, though, consumers aren’t the only ones with an issue: Designers tend to overestimate the value of their products, or at least how much consumers will value them. John Gourville, a professor at Harvard Business School, calls this the “9x effect”: Consumers value what they have as three times better than what they stand to gain, while designers overvalue their new creation by the same factor. “The result is a mismatch of nine to one, or 9x, between what innovators think consumers desire and what consumers really want,” Gourville wrote in a 2006 piece for the Harvard Business Review.

因此，即使從客觀上說，對Google文檔的更改要比每個人都好，但人們仍然會感到惱火，因為他們自然傾向于喜歡已經擁有的內容。 但是，從另一個角度來看，消費者并不是唯一一個有問題的人：設計師往往高估了產品的價值，或者至少高估了消費者對產品的重視程度。 哈佛商學院教授約翰·古維爾(John Gourville)稱其為“ 9倍效應”：消費者認為自己擁有的產品要比獲得的產品好三倍，而設計師則以相同的因素高估了他們的新產品。 Gourville在2006年為《 哈佛商業評論 》撰寫的文章中寫道：“結果是創新者認為消費者期望與消費者真正期望之間存在9比1或9倍的不匹配。”

This disconnect between designers and consumers is a frequent contributor to innovations that don’t quite hit the mark with users, says Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

南加州大學馬歇爾商學院臨床營銷助理教授拉爾斯·佩納(Lars Perner)說，設計師與消費者之間的這種脫節是導致創新的常見原因，而創新并未給用戶帶來任何好處。

“With technology-driven companies run by engineers, they may go more with values of technical excellence,” without taking into account what users truly want or need, Perner says. At these companies, designers are “surrounded by people who are more technically savvy and who will maybe be more receptive to some of those designs.”

Perner說：“在工程師驅動的技術驅動型公司的情況下，他們可能會獲得更高的技術卓越價值，”而無需考慮用戶的真正需求。 在這些公司中，設計師“被技術上更精明的人所包圍，并且可能會更愿意接受其中一些設計。”

So, if the company does limited public testing and instead relies on its employees to gauge how positively users are going to react to a new release, it’s going to get a skewed perspective. Communities built around specific industries tend to place higher demands on their product than the general customer base; compare, for example, the sort of wine a sommelier may prefer compared to your average, run-of-the mill drinker who just wants a $10 bottle of pinot noir.

因此，如果該公司進行有限的公開測試，而是依靠其員工來衡量用戶對新版本的React有多積極，那么它將有一個偏頗的觀點。 圍繞特定行業建立的社區往往比一般客戶群對產品的要求更高； 比較一下，例如，一位侍酒師可能會喜歡的葡萄酒與您只想要10美元一瓶的黑比諾葡萄酒的普通，磨坊般的飲酒者相比。

This isn’t to say you can’t eventually work those $10 pinot drinkers up to, say, an unfiltered sparkling wine. It just needs to be done with a customer-first strategy that fully takes into account that people need to be eased into new features and product changes. Designers should emphasize how painless it is to level up, focusing only on the advantages of the new product in later messaging. A 2016 study investigated how study participants might be persuaded to rent electric cars instead of the diesel cars they were accustomed to. It found that users were overwhelmed by the new technology and afraid that it would inconvenience them or that they would have to change their behavior to use it. Consumers almost always prefer inaction, as it is cognitively easier, the researchers state. So, if designers want to effectively market new technology to users, they need to do so in a way that emphasizes how easy the changes are to implement instead of focusing on how amazing they are.

這并不是說您最終不能讓那些10美元的品脫飲用者最多只能使用未經過濾的起泡酒。 只需使用“客戶至上”的策略來完成，該策略應充分考慮到人們需要簡化新功能和產品更改。 設計師應該強調升級的過程很輕松，僅在以后的消息傳遞中重點關注新產品的優勢。 一項2016年的研究調查了如何說服研究參與者租用電動汽車而不是他們習慣的柴油汽車。 它發現用戶對新技術不知所措，并且擔心它會給他們帶來不便，或者他們不得不改變其行為才能使用它。 研究人員指出，消費者幾乎總是喜歡無所作為，因為它在認知上更容易。 因此，如果設計人員希望向用戶有效推銷新技術，則他們需要以強調變更實現起來的容易程度而不是專注于其驚人程度的方式進行。

Of course, as with the Google Docs update, customers often aren’t given much of a choice. Allowing people to opt in to changes can potentially make them more amenable to them, even if they decide to hold off. “Sometimes just the option of ‘Do you want to use the beta now?’ or ‘Do you want to wait until this officially rolls out?’” can improve how well a new release will land with consumers, says Mark Hall, a user experience strategist and instructor at the University of California San Diego Extension. The Google Docs rollout, on the other hand, did not offer this. “Control is a big thing, especially when we have fewer things under control now,” he says.

當然，與Google文檔更新一樣，客戶通常沒有太多選擇。 允許人們選擇更改，即使他們決定推遲進行更改，也有可能使它們更易于接受。 “有時只是'您現在要使用Beta的選項嗎？' 加州大學圣地亞哥分校擴展中心的用戶體驗策略師兼講師Mark Hall說，“或者您是否要等到正式發布之前？”可以提高新版本在消費者中的占有率。 另一方面，“ Google文檔”卷展欄未提供此功能。 他說：“控制是一件大事，尤其是當我們現在要控制的東西越來越少時。”

I tend to sign up for the beta option, as I find it fun to experiment with new features before they’re released to the general public. I’m even more likely to endure any glitches and bugs if I signed on voluntarily. But when sites roll out significant product changes without warning or explanation, without any apparent input from their wider customer base, and with little prospect of going back to the old interface, it’s easy to see why people will get frustrated, especially in a time when we’re already feeling powerless and unmoored. Does a change to the Google Docs sharing interface or how Twitter displays reply threads really matter? Beyond a few moments of initial irritation and a learning curve, no, not really. We’ll acclimate eventually. Companies know that and count on our irritation fading with time, though there are exceptions. (I’m still angry at Apple’s introduction of the dongle, which I felt forced into adopting and years later don’t believe has been anything other than a nuisance.) But customers aren’t robots, and design hits us on an emotional level, even if it isn’t anything close to a life-or-death issue. And right now, everyone’s a little raw.

我傾向于注冊beta選項，因為我發現在將新功能發布給公眾之前嘗試這些功能很有趣。 如果我自愿簽約，我甚至更有可能忍受任何故障和錯誤。 但是，當站點在沒有警告或解釋的情況下推出重大的產品更改，沒有廣泛的客戶群提供任何明顯輸入，又沒有回到舊界面的可能性時，很容易看出人們為什么會感到沮喪，尤其是在我們已經感到無能為力，無所適從。 更改Google Docs共享界面或Twitter如何顯示回復線程真的重要嗎？ 除了最初的刺激和學習曲線以外，不，不是真的。 我們將最終適應。 公司知道這一點，并指望我們的刺激會隨著時間的流逝而消失，盡管有例外。 (我仍然對Apple引入的加密狗感到憤怒，我感到這種加密狗被迫采用，并且幾年后不相信這只是滋擾。)但是客戶不是機器人，設計在情感上給我們帶來了打擊，即使這不是解決生死攸關的問題。 而現在，每個人都有些不成熟。

“Designs that advance the organization’s ego instead of solving the customer’s problem are the most frustrating and the least likely to succeed,” says Jeffrey Zeldman, a creative director at Automattic, the company behind WordPress and Tumblr, and an instructor of interaction design at the School of Visual Arts. “Folks will forgive shoddy graphic design, slow performance, and other sins if the design, for all its other failings, lets the customer feel empowered.” Smart design, he says, works with customers, rather than dictating down to them.

WordPress和Tumblr背后的公司Automattic的創意總監，互動交互設計的講師Jeffrey Zeldman說：“提高組織的自我意識而不是解決客戶的問題的設計是最令人沮喪，最不可能成功的。”視覺藝術學院。 “如果設計能夠解決所有其他缺點，讓客戶感到被賦予權力，那么人們將原諒拙劣的圖形設計，緩慢的性能以及其他缺點。” 他說，智能設計與客戶合作，而不是要求客戶。

So, sure, maybe your brain, like nearly everyone else’s, is lazy and fearful, and that’s why you’re struggling with the new Google Docs, or Twitter threads, or whatever. But if customers are a group of rowdy, disagreeable children, designers are the adults in the room who are tasked with communicating and delegating changes sensitively. When they release new changes to people’s workflows at a time when their jobs and lives are already massively disrupted, is it any wonder people are going to be upset?

因此，可以肯定的是，也許您的大腦(就像幾乎其他所有人一樣)是懶惰和恐懼的，這就是為什么您在努力使用新的Google文檔，Twitter線程或其他東西。 但是，如果客戶是一群討厭，討厭的孩子，那么設計師就是房間里的成年人，他們負責敏感地交流和委派變更。 當他們在工作和生活已經受到嚴重破壞的時候對人們的工作流程進行新的更改時，人們是否會感到沮喪呢？