How to Design for Trust in Digital Services
There is not a business today, planing on survive for the next few years that does not regard trust as one of their key elements of survival. Understanding how to implement trust in your service might be key for the future of your business. There is a gap between “I need…” and “How do I…” when it comes to trust in digital services.
Between the three of us
You, me and the internet — This paper is based on a 6 months long master thesis during the spring of 2015. The first phase consisted of research of design litterature, which I quickly discovered was inadequate. The remains of the research was conducted within psychology, management, behavioural studies, economy and philosophy.
A look on history
Trust has been essensial thought out history. From where we trusted only objects, to metal and eventually just paper as a representation of value, how this made us trust strangers. How refinement of production led to the industrial revolution, where large companies began to fight, yet be dependent on regulations, financial institutions, loans and laws, creating whole new industries in order to sustain trust in the market. How the internet came along, enabling people to no longer be dependent of large enterprises, but allowing us to democratise the marketplace in a networked economy. The state we are now, Jazon Tanz¹ calls the intimate economy. Onora O’neill² calls trust a statement which we as humas respond with once we find a company, person or institution trustworthy.
We now have things, services and immaterial possessions, and we are now able to deal with them. We are in a point in time where trust has become a currency.
O’neill continue to say that it is not the goal that we should trust everything, but we, humans, need to learn how to place our trust correctly. If you run a business, develop a service, or participate in any project, you should fight for the fact, that you need the user to place their trust towards your business, service or project. And it does not stop there. Yes, we use services or products t deal with what ever job we need to get done³, however Nir Eyal⁴ states that using online services does not only cover a specific need or action, as for instance shopping. He took it further by stating that it also helps us cope with emotions. He claimed that when we are feeling lonely, we go to Facebook. When we are bored we go to YouTube, or if we feel unsure of something we simply Google it.
According to Clay Shirkey we need we need to be able to clarify what the service expects from the customer, and what a user can expect from the service. Shirkey defines this as a bargin, in his book “Here comes everybody” (2008). The service provider needs to be clear so that users never questions the fundamental functionality of the service. If the user doubts one of these functions, the reliability, impression and capability of the service collapses.
Understaning the background, we undertand the importance of trust, but how do we build it? Below follow a substraction of my master thesis. The thesis can be read in full here.
The five principles of trust
The result of the reaseach accumulated in the following five principles, and three levels of application.
1. Competence
Giving the users proof of your capability. Ensure them that you are able to perform what you have promised.
When it comes do digital services, there should be some proof that the service is capable to perform what they set out to do. If the service is offering something, they need to have the proper personnel and goods to be able to cope with the demand. If the service is facilitating a transaction it should be able to secure the transaction properly, so the user will get what they have paid for, and the provider should get the money promised. Security is an important factor when it comes to competence.
Competence is reliant on context, and varies according to application level. It should be displayed in the UI, but competence is also built though experiences, strategy and brand reputation.
2. Transparency
Giving the user an appropriate amount of clarity and openness. Be clear on the things you ask, and why you are asking for it.
As Rachel Troye, pro rector at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design told the diploma students of spring 2015 at the second midterm review; “Nothing is obvious”. This applies to strategy, communication and UI of digital service design as well. Transparency is basically being honest or straightforward, or to put it in another way; transparency is about not tricking the user. You could say that transparency is to be open about the fine print of the user agreement. In order to be transparent, the service could be clear on the things they ask, and why they ask for it. If the service collect user data, and an explanation of how they use that are examples of how to be transparent — This is also a requirement by law in Europe with the new General Data Protection Regulation, from May 2018. Also being open about people, customers, pricing and motives could also be beneficial, depending on business model and if it is appropriate to be open about it. This varies from different services, and different sectors. If the service does something that is seen as important, valuable or responsible, it will benefit the business to be open about it to their customers, as it could increase the business or service reputation.
3. Control
Giving the user reasonable tools to manage their actions. Allow them to get a sense of control in the situation.
By allowing the users to make choices, manage their own actions and settings, it is likely that you give the user a sense of control. If a service tricks, forces or limits the actions of the user, the sense of control vanishes. Yet again, this is a matter of appropriateness and should be evaluated in the process. The amount of control given to the user may vary from service to service.
“If it is free, you are the product”
Whereas transparency gives the user the understanding of why an action or setting is required, control gives the user an option to perform an action, change a setting, and decide whether or not to do this or that.
4. Expectation
Giving the user an expectation of how the service works and what the user will gain by using the service.
Users tends to have certain expectations on how things should look, how things should be done, or why something is the way they are. This is all based on conventions. If I ask you to think of a clown, you probably would think about a red nose, and colorful clothes, or something like that. We tend to expect the prototypical, and if something does not match our expectations, we might feel that something is a bit off. The same thing goes for an expected behavior. If we enter a online store, and all the products are sold out, our expectations are not met. So the next time we are thinking about entering that store, we will probably not feel as confident as to enter that same store again, thinking about the time they couldn’t do what you expected. You could call this behaviour a new kind of basic instinct. Conventions are not a bad thing, but one thing is for certain; disruptions occur.
5. Appearance
Giving the user a desired impression of the service by avoiding errors and consider how the service is perceived in public.
Appearance might seem strange to put as one of the main principles of trust. The thing is that humans are hardwired to trust beautiful people. Whether or not you belive it, it is based on ndings in a study done at Rice University of Texas. The same research says that it could also be seen as an obsticle for some, as people tend to expect more from attractive people. PhD of psychology, Susan Krauss Whitbourne, have published a research paper on Psychology Today⁵, titled “Why the look on your face may matter more than what you say”. This relational behavior is also transferable to both physical and digital products. A bank might have a challenge if they state “Dude, here’s your dough” rather than “Your bank statement”. It might work, but conventions are powerfull, and touches upon the principles of competence and expectation. Appropriate appearance can be difficult to master, and it could help us in order to obtain trust from our users. How ever, the easier option is to make sure to avoid mistrust. No spelling mistakes, no broken links, no glitchy images and no sense of forced behavior. Secondly, the design should not make the user feel uncertain of anything. Once again, it all boils down to appropriateness. The principle of appearance counts for visual expression and behavioral appearance as well. It includes graphics and visuals, but it covers voice in the service and communication to the public, as for instance in social media. In retail there has been a saying for decades, that goes:
“If you have a happy customer, you have one happy customer. If you have one dissatis ed customer, you’ll have 10 dissatisfied customers”.
Today, that has not change — it has been multiplied. One tweet or one facebook post can go viral, and you can end up with reacing thousands of possible users, resulting in thousands with a negative impression of the service.
Levels of application
To be able to create trust between the service and the user, trust should be applied throughout the production chain and across levels. In order to exploit the full potential of the principles, there is a need to separate the levels of where the principles have an impact. For instance does the business model a affect the content, and content can in turn impact the the visual outcome.
STRATEGIC LEVEL
Meaning the executive level, the business model. The decisions of how a service should work, who it is for, and why it is made.
CONTENT LEVEL
Meaning the editorial level. What the service or product shows, what is displayed and what is not. Flow, content, navigation and information architecture plays a big part.
SURFACE LEVEL
Meaning the experience touch point for the end user. UI design, fonts, colors, use of images and graphics.
Conclusion
There is little doubt that trust is a crucial aspect as our society face rapid development in both social structure and digitalization. How could it be possible to find a universal language of trust? The answer to this is not a one-size-fits-all. We have to concider cultural differences, demography and the markets in which we operate.
The goal of this article is to enquip anyone who participate in developing businesses, products or services with a mindset on how to design for trust.
[1] Jazon Tanz, “How Airbnb and Lyft Finaly got americans to trust eachother”, Wired, April 2014.
[2] Onora O’neill, at TedX London, June 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/onora_o_neill_what_we_don_t_understand_about_trust
[3] Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation by Stephen Wunker and Jessica Wattman — Many argue it is a framework described by Clayton M. Christensen (Author), Karen Dillon (Author), Taddy Hall (Author), David S. Duncan (Author)
[4] Nir Eyal, “Building habit forming products” at Webdagene October 15th, 2014
[5] Susan Krauss Whitbourne, “Why the Look on Your Face May Matter More Than What You Say “, August 5 th, 2014. https:// www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201408/why-the-look-your-face-may-matter-more-what-you-say
All photos collected from unsplah.com
