Designing the Future Through the Little Things

[Music]

when i was in college

i watched this movie the butterfly

effect it’s a science fiction thriller

that constantly keeps you at the edge

and the ending is left to viewers

interpretation the movie is based on a

very popular hypothetical situation

called the butterfly effect which

illustrates how an initial

small difference can result in massive

consequences in the future

it comes from the analogy that even the

feeble flap of the wings of a butterfly

at one place

can trigger a series of atmospheric

events which in turn

may lead into a tornado in a place far

away

interesting isn’t it it’s actually part

of a much broader concept in mathematics

called the chaos theory which has

tons of research papers written on it

but that’s not what i’m going to talk

about today

what amuses me more are those little

things

you know those little triggers like the

flap of that

wing of a butterfly which has the

potential to drive

massive results over time when the

concept was presented to me as a movie

i found it new and mind-blowing i

enjoyed every bit of it

but later when i gave it a little more

thought i realized that

the world is full of such examples

history is

full of such examples and in fact our

daily lives are

are full of such examples

you know the little things that you do

the the tiny habits that you form

the small decisions that you take can

have massive results on our lives

given a choice we all would want to play

the small things in the best possible

way

so as to reap the maximum benefits for

the future

right but often we do not realize

which of these would be a trigger for

the future

but at times we even know what they are

and at times

we may hit the spot just by sheer dint

of luck

it can be about instant gains as well

for instance

i started mentoring people on a daily

basis a few months back you know when

the covet lockdown had started

i use a scheduler tool where people can

browse

the empty slots on my calendar click and

directly book a call with me

so the first one or two months are very

smooth i would get on a call speak to

them and all been nice

but after that i observed a pattern

i saw that every week there would be at

least two or three cases

where the mentee wouldn’t turn up for

the call even though it is scheduled on

their calendar

a little bit of retrospection led me

into knowing that

the tool that i was using the scheduler

it has by default let the users

book slots on my calendar for a duration

of two months in advance

and since the slots were really getting

filled fast

when anyone came to that scheduler page

they would at best find a vacant slot

which was two months away

so which means by the time their date

arrived of the date of the appointment

the very reason why they wanted to get

on a call with me

probably would not be valid anymore and

hence

the no shows were happening once i

figured this out

the solution was simple i went to the

settings and i changed it

so that people could book a slot with me

only up to one month in advance and not

to

after that the number of no shows has

considerably reduced

of course there are a few genuine cases

but it’s certainly not a pattern anymore

now it may seem like a very small and

trivial thing but imagine this happening

every week

it does affect you and by doing that

small thing to fix it

save me a lot of mental space at times

this impact can be seen over a large

number of people say the population of

an entry

entire country as well a few years back

there was a widespread nutritional

deficiency in cambodia where more than

50

of the people were affected with certain

kind of anemia

the pregnant woman especially living in

the rural areas were the worst hit

there were increased number of cases of

premature labor

with newborn babies born with

underdeveloped brains

now this was a big problem and all these

even led

to a gdp loss of over 70 billion dollars

every year

the authorities found out that it was

happening due to the deficiency of iron

in their diet

and one simple yet effective solution

was to use cast iron utensils

cookware made of cast iron when food was

cooked on these

the utensils would release a certain

amount of iron into the food which would

take care of a significant part of the

recommended iron

an individual would need but here was

the problem

the solution was not very feasible

because changing all the cookware

at somebody’s house is an expensive

affair especially for people living in

the rural areas

so the authorities figured out a cheaper

alternative they instructed everyone

to drop a small piece of cast iron into

the vessel while cooking their food

you know a small cast iron disk or

something like that

now this would have the same effect as

cooking food and cast iron utensils

simple right smart

but the only problem was nobody did it

because no one really understood the

significance of the seemingly unwanted

step

into their cooking process so they

conveniently ignored it

now this brought the authorities back to

their drawing boards

because it was a big problem and they

had to solve it

and this time they again came back with

a suggestion

another piece of cast iron but this time

the shape of it was that of a fish

instead of a disk and they also gave it

a name the lucky iron fish

guess what it became so popular

overnight that

everyone wanted to have the lucky iron

fish with them

i mean come on who wouldn’t want a bit

of luck into every meal that they eat

so was there anything lucky about that

fish not really

yet it worked like a charm by convincing

everyone to introduce a seemingly

unwanted step

into their process of cooking later it

was discovered that iron deficiency was

not the primary cause of the anemia that

was

rampant in cambodia and our lucky iron

fish could only supplement the dietary

iron

so it didn’t quite it didn’t completely

wipe out anemia

but yet it’s amazing how that small idea

could change the behavior of a large

number of population

just like that speaking of behavior

there are also instances in the history

where people have gone above and beyond

to build a behavior

after world war two many western

companies were flourishing in japan

everyone

wanted to introduce their products in

japan and they were truly doing really

well

but nestle as a company was struggling

with its flagship product

coffee they seemingly built a wonderful

product

price did well and did everything else

right that was needed

yet the sales were simply not picking up

no amount of promotions or marketing or

advertisement

helped because people were still not

buying coffee

that’s when nestle as a company decided

to do a stimulus experiment with the

people of japan

the result of the experiment revealed

that the japanese people

didn’t have any association or memory or

emotions associated with the coffee

drink

why because japan is a country prefers

to have tea and they have been doing it

for thousands of years

coffee is a recent foreign phenomenon

and not everyone is quite acquainted

with that

so no matter how much they tried they

were not able to build an association

with coffee

also it had a burning smell and taste

which didn’t really invoke

a positive feeling in their minds so

here’s what nestle did

they planted a very small seed into the

minds of an entire generation

as a long-term strategy they started

manufacturing coffee flavored

candies yeah candies and they started

marketing them to the children in japan

so that the children already get

acquainted to the taste of coffee

because they were having those candies

and also associate pleasant memories

with it so that when they grow up and

start consuming beverages

coffee would be a natural choice for

them and guess what

it worked today the japanese love their

coffee as much as they love their tea

and it wouldn’t have been possible if

that small seed wasn’t planted

into the minds of one of the generations

it’s a perfect example of catch them

while they are still young

it amazes me and amazes me even more as

a designer because that’s what i do

i build behaviors with the experiences

that i design and at times things can

happen in the most unexpected but

pleasant way

well speaking of design i’m sure you

must have heard of stories which says

that by

changing the color of a button on your

website you can increase the sales

by multi-fold or something like that

i’ve heard them too but honestly i do

not know how true they are

but i personally have experienced

similar instances in my career as well

i work for a foodtech company we have an

app using which people can order food

from restaurants nearby

hyperlocal services essentially a few

months back we observed a pattern

a problem actually there were many

requests of orders for cancellations

because people had placed order at wrong

locations at wrong addresses

by mistake and needless to say

cancellation of orders cost us money as

an organization

for any hyperlocal services the delivery

address is one of the most important

thing

because that decides a lot of other

things like

what are the restaurants that you will

see when you open because not every

restaurant is serviceable everywhere

it depends on the delivery address that

you choose and that is why

even in our ui the delivery address is

right there at the top of the page in a

very prominent spot

so that the user sees it the first when

they land into the page

but that’s not how the users think

when users come to our app they’re

usually hungry and the thing that they

have in their mind is

food and not address and rightly so

hence they were not seeing the address

even though it was in one of the most

prominent places right at the top

because

they never bothered thinking about that

while gps does a good job at finding the

location but it’s still not perfect

especially in indoor conditions

and most of our users would be using the

app while they’re indoors

so maybe all the cancellation requests

that we were receiving

were probably cases where the gps

couldn’t find the location of the user

possible we do have an algorithm which

predicts the location of the user

in case there are no signals from gps

but let’s admit it

no matter how good an algorithm is it

can never completely understand what is

in the minds of the user

so the problem narrowed down to how do

we direct the tension of the user

towards the address even if it’s for a

very short time so that they can go and

correct it in case it’s wrong

here’s where we have introduced a very

small thing

small thing we started showing the

address

right in the splash screen that is the

moment you tap on the app icon

and after that we have an animation a

follow me animation

that would guide the eyes of the user

towards where the address finally goes

and sits

at the top so that in case they want to

they can always tap and go and change it

in case

the address that is automatically

fetched is wrong

we are yet to know the results of the

feature that we have

shipped but the initial results are very

promising

we often reach a stage where life gives

us choices choices which seem

equally good i was in that position six

years back

i was a student in an engineering

college and i had

job offers and two companies in hand two

very different companies but equally

promising

offers i was sitting in front of the

placement portal

i was just one click away from

triggering the future that i am in today

i looked at them said my prayers and

accepted one

at times i still sit to think what would

have happened if i had clicked the other

button

or if i had you know accepted the other

company

maybe i would never know what working

for a large multinational company means

maybe i would never realize that working

at the indian back office of an american

company

isn’t really my cup of tea

maybe i would never meet the lady who’s

my wife today

or maybe i would never gather the

courage

to switch my career to design and that

too at a startup

or maybe i wouldn’t be speaking in front

of you guys today

in this platform small things are

powerful

extremely powerful so next time in your

life when you encounter a situation that

makes you feel that this could be a

trigger

think of this talk maybe thank you

everyone