Make the Unfamiliar Familiar

I was in the kitchen spitballing ideas with my husband about a revolutionary new product idea. We felt it might be revolutionary. As we started to poke holes in the idea, one of our sticking points was how to communicate this mold-breaking model. Was there anything quite like it?

Our conversation reminded me of a common pitfall product teams can frequently fall into: whether to be revolutionary or evolutionary.

Snapchat is a great example of a product that went against the grain, creating an experience in opposition to the way users expected to interact with an app. Snapchat has obviously found success with a very specific audience, but revolutionary app models are not always so successful. That’s because offering an experience with too much novelty or unfamiliarity can create a high barrier for customers to understand and use your product. That creates churn, getting in the way of them completing the simplest tasks.

You can minimize the learning curve for users by implementing a few key tactics.

  1. First, analyze alternatives. Start by observing what is already out in the world. Customers will frequently bring their expectations of how things function from other products to yours.

  2. Create predictable patterns

    1. Ask yourself: how would a user expect this to work?

    2. Make things look consistent by deciding on a place for recurring actions and keep them there. Users are expecting those to be in the same place each time.

    3. Implement design standards or build out a pattern library so your customer can experience a visually seamless experience. This will also help your internal team greatly to not be left guessing what the latest approach is.

  3. Simplify and declutter

    1. Implement an information hierarchy so users can focus on the most important info first.

    2. Hide what actions aren’t currently relevant and expose those that are. This can help reduce clicks and help users complete their intended task quicker.


So today’s advice: Make the unfamiliar familiar. If you're set on changing the industry standard, slowly roll out features so users can adapt with less confusion. Model other familiar patterns, so users can focus on their task rather than learning a new way of doing things. And most importantly, be sure to get feedback from users on how any new features are working in practice.