Love through the Screen: 3 Innovations in Human-Centered Tech
Facilitating the human touch through pixels
2020 has been a year of many lessons. One in particular is that companies have a responsibility to protect their users and that they must be held accountable for their decisions. From the Social Dilemma Netflix documentary to seeing big tech companies testify before Congress, we have witnessed companies grapple with misinformation and attempt to define what a “neutral” stance in tech means (or whether neutrality even exists). Undoubtedly, there is room for improved accountability and more proactive designing for desirable implications.
These recent events highlight the criticality of the pockets of human-centered innovation that enable technologies to become more understanding of and empowering to consumers. It is now more important than ever for companies to build using this approach.
What is human-centered technology?
As IDEO defines it, human-centered design is about cultivating deep empathy with the people you’re designing for. This results in the creation of products that resonate at a fundamental level with audiences, naturally driving engagement and growth. As an example approach:
Instead of asking: “How might we increase the amount of time users spend on our platform?”
Ask: “How might we increase the quality of the connections between people on our platform so that they feel more fulfilled?”
Successful human-centered products are often built upon real rather than assumed customer insights, incorporate a system for constant user feedback, and provoke or welcome emotions.
My perspective is that in addition to designing with your audience’s emotions and lifestyles in mind, human-centered tech must take into account its actual impact, intended or not, on peoples’ lives. A reactive approach where management responds only after receiving journalist criticism is no longer acceptable; we need to proactively predict the results of our decisions and own up to them.
I’ll be exploring a few examples of human-centered tech that work, below.
OMADA HEALTH
Omada is a digital health company offering programs that empower people to achieve their health goals, including managing a chronic disease or mental health. It positions human-centered care as the glue that holds its programs together and enable them to be effective.
- Intentional design: Omada uses human coaches to create personalized action plans and provide feedback to program participants. This creates an experience that is both motivating and allows healthy room for error — in case a participant doesn’t meet his health goals in one week, the coach can readjust. In comparison to programs that are rigid and provide only standardized feedback, Omada’s product acknowledges that everyone has different health goals and preferred communication mechanisms. Users thus engage in a much more personalized and effective experience.
- User feedback: Because Omada coaches are interfacing directly with users every week via group boards and private messaging, they receive real-time feedback on what’s working and what’s not. Coaches are then in constant communication with Omada’s user insights & product teams so that they can rapidly iterate on program features.
- Owning its impact: Omada has shared many clinical studies that prove its effectiveness, but one of its most compelling displays of commitment to users is its performance-based business model: Omada charges clients a performance fee based on how much weight their employees lose. In other words, the money that Omada makes off of each customer is maximized by helping the customer achieve the best possible outcomes. Using this business model, Omada has skin in the game and shows accountability for its impact.
FACEBOOK’S “CARE” REACTION
Back in 2010, Facebook introduced its “Like” button. This simple feature quickly became a popular mechanism for users to indicate en masse which posts, videos, and photos to pay attention to. Critics have argued that the rise of social media has been linked to a rise in depression amongst teenagers, who equate the number of “likes” with how accepted or well-liked they are.
To make Facebook a more welcoming place, it introduced five “Facebook Reactions” which allow users to express more nuanced emotional responses to content. Most recently this year, it introduced the “Care” reaction to help people show support.
- Use of emotion: Though the “Love” reaction was already available, when COVID-19 came, Facebook teams wanted users to be able to express sympathy or support. During this pandemic when people were under lockdown and could easily feel isolated, they needed to be able to connect with friends and family. Introducing this “Care” reaction allowed users to convey deeper human emotions and engage in more meaningful interactions with each other when they needed it most.
- Thoughtful design: After Facebook teams decided the emoji would display a hug, they had to design the microexpressions to be uplifting and caring, but not explicitly smiling, in order to pinpoint a specific sympathetic emotion. This required attention to detail around the smile, corners of the eyes, in the eyebrows, and in the animation of the hug. This emoji was then tested to ensure it was being used in the right places, before the broader rollout. Through this deliberate process, Facebook teams ensured the reaction captured the intended human sentiments and were used in a safe way.
Facebook’s launch of emotional reactions allow users to express how they feel, compared to the more unspecific “like” reaction that could indicate any number of feelings. This has helped humanize the digital interactions of its platform and increase the ways users interact with each other.
ROBINHOOD APP
Robinhood is a commission-free trading app that is designed to give everyone, even those with low financial literacy, access to the market. It tackles the process of trading stocks which was previously complicated, expensive, and not intuitive to navigate.
- Intuitive design: Robinhood uses mechanisms to simplify navigation and distill information down to what is most critical for users to make investment decisions. Color is used to convey important shifts: There is a night and day mode in the app that reflects when markets are opened and closed, and the UI changes between red and green backgrounds depending on how the portfolio is performing. This allows users to glean important information without having to read into complex calculations and acronyms, like they might have to do on the Fidelity app.
- Inclusion of information that empowers the user: Since Robinhood focuses on relatively new investors (half of their customers are first-time investors), it has provided essential information at each step to guide users and clearly explain what different investment actions mean. For example, if you are curious about limit orders, before you go through with the transaction you have the option of reading details that explain and visualize how this works. By doing this, Robinhood not only increases engagement with its services, but also promotes positive end financial outcomes for its users by enabling them to make better choices.
At every step on the Robinhood app, there are clear guidelines and visual cues that empower and invite the user in. While Robinhood does not have a human on the other end of the app like Omada does, nor does it offer features that connect users to each other via emotional reactions like Facebook does, it designs around a clear vision of who new investors are and what they need.
Incorporating the human touch through building around the user’s values, emotions, and needs, is the first step to building successful consumer facing tech. Taking responsibility for the customer impact — especially if it turns out to be negative — is also necessary. This means taking a 360° evaluation on the decisions you’re making, not only on the outcomes you hope for.
This is especially important for products that addresses intimate parts of our lives such as our health, relationships, or finances. It helps us connect better with each other and accomplish our goals with more confidence.
Let’s continue this momentum towards creating products with higher levels of compassion and responsibility.
