Last week I challenged you to choose one idea that you were going to commit to experiment with. What did you learn? Did you uncover anything new that you hadn’t thought of? Did the experiment create the momentum needed to keep going with your idea?
This week I want to talk about the big impact of small changes.
While on a recent Delta flight, I read an article about Twitter in the airline’s Sky Magazine. The article was about one of Twitter’s main challenges: trying to get users to join and then actually come back to Twitter regularly.
To many of us who have been on Twitter since the beginning, it seems pretty easy to follow. But for people using Twitter for the first time, I can definitely see why it could feel confusing. Your already distracted brain is forced into task-shifting overload as it tries to read, and read into, each tweet in the timeline.
Creating a great experience is an experiment. This is why it is so important to always be testing. Every single little detail truly matters in an experience. For example, in the fall Twitter changed the icon to favorite a tweet from a star to a heart.
The result? Twitter saw a 6% increase in the activity after the first week. Now of course, some of the increase could be attributed to the press that the feature received. But still, 6% is significant.
What are things that you could test in something you’re creating? Does your manager or colleague not really understand the value of user experience? Find a very small test to run and then use that as a way to demonstrate to them the impact that user experience can have.
Or, if you’re not a user experience designer, could you experiment with something in your industry? Or even in your personal life? Could you try to not use an electronic device for the first 15 minutes of the day and see how it affects your mood? Could you try and go to bed 30 minutes earlier for a week and see how it affects your sleep? I bet the results would surprise you! Small changes yield big results. But you just have to take the first step and actually make the change.