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