The promise and the peril of the digital screen

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Digital screens are now integral to our daily lives. But despite our familiarity and, invariably, our reliance on them, the medium can affect our interactions. Indeed, the way we think when we go through processes via a screen can be considerably different to how we respond in other forms of interaction.

In his book The Smarter Screen – what your business can learn from the way consumers think online, Shlomo Benartzi, professor and co-chair of the behavioural decision-making group at UCLA Anderson School of Management, explores online behaviour and shares his research into how people think differently when using screens. He spoke to Impact about his findings.

Impact: Has the speed of processing always been faster on screens, or are people getting faster the more they become used to screens? 

Benartzi: Although people have always relied on fast judgements, the online world seems to be especially reliant on these speedy assessments. For instance, there’s good evidence that we make important decisions about which websites we prefer – they are more visually appealing – within 50 milliseconds, or 1/6th of the time of a human blink. We aren’t aware of what we’re responding to so quickly – it’s usually a mixture of colour choice and layout complexity – but it still shapes our ensuing decisions about the website, including how much we trust it.

Impact: What are the key differences between screen types – how do touchscreens affect behaviour compared with other types?

Benartzi: While there is some suggestive data showing that people think more superficially on an iPhone compared to a laptop, I think one of the main effects of touchscreens concerns the endowment effect. When people shop on a touchscreen, they feel more attached to the objects they are looking at. According to one study, touchscreens can increase how much shoppers value a given item by nearly 50%, at least compared to people browsing on a laptop.

Impact: The anonymity of a screen seems to help in some situations (healthcare), but not in others (over-ordering in restaurants); what can brands do about this? Is it always a case of understanding the need to be sector- or occasion-specific?

Benartzi: I think one needs to always think about each task. Instead of speculating in general about the digital space, my goal is to develop strategies that allow us to maximise the upside and minimise the downside of technology with respect to different tasks.

Impact: You have talked about the digital reading gap; why do people read less well on screen than on paper?

Benartzi: It’s still not totally clear what’s causing the digital reading gap, but one possibility is that screens make reading too easy, encouraging our eyes to skim over the text. The end result is that we remember less of what we read. This helps explain why people tend to read and remember better when they are given texts in so-called disfluent fonts, such as Comic Sans. The unfamiliar print slows them down. I wonder if we should experiment with similar techniques in the digital world. 

Impact: What are the implications for market researchers as more survey information and data are being collected through mobile devices?

Benartzi: It’s a pretty consistent finding that about 50% of all participants in scientific experiments fail basic tests of attention on screens. This means that roughly half of the data you are paying for is not very useful, as the participants are too distracted

Impact: Does it mean they will actually get the wrong answers (thinking about the research where those answering financial knowledge questions on an iPhone were more likely to get it wrong)?

Benartzi: Yes, that’s one direct implication. People who aren’t paying attention are going to give you answers of much lower quality.

Impact: What are the most important aspects of screen behaviour that companies should think about when designing their websites or screen-based customer interaction?

Benartzi: I think we need to design our websites for a world in which customers make fast judgements and have very little attention. This tends to mean more colour and less complexity. I also think we should do a better job of leveraging the screen-location effect, which refers to the fact that people are far more likely to choose items in those parts of the screen where their eyes land first. We should put the best choices where people are already looking.

Impact: Of all the studies you have looked at, and the research you have done yourself, what was the most surprising aspect of behaviour with digital screens that you came across?

Benartzi: I would have to say I was most surprised by my studies with Yaron Levi of users of the Personal Capital app. It’s a simple app that gives people easy access to all of their financial information on their smartphone. What we found is that simply giving people the app – even when they were already using the website – allowed them to reduce their spending by more than 15%. That’s a huge change in behaviour, and it was triggered by a single download. Such results are a reminder that these digital tools can really change our lives – at least if we design them correctly.

TOP 10.. tools for triggering behavioural change on screens:

1. Factor in the attention environment
2. Use information-compression techniques
3. Maximise visceral beauty
4. When in doubt, err on the side of simplicity
5. Optimise the use of hotspots
6. Make us feel the feedback
7. Use cognitive disfluency to slow down the mind
8. Offer a manageable consideration set
9. Create thinking tools
10.  Use science to drive your design and A/B testing

The seven habits of effective digital feedback

1. Time it right – feedback has to arrive at the right time to have an impact.
2. Make it personal – the best feedback begins with effortless measurement, with devices so subtle we forget we’re even being watched.
3. Avoid feedback overdose – we’re not looking for devices that simply give us more feedback, or track everything about our lives; we’re looking for ones that cut through the clutter and tell us more with less.
4. Trigger a feeling – use a system of gradual escalation, making sure the tone of the feedback reflects the urgency of the situation.
5. Incorporate an action plan – better to offer feedback that gets people to think.
6. Encourage, don’t criticise – make it about the task, not the person. Keep it gentle and future-oriented.
7. Follow the evidence – all digital feedback must be thoroughly tested; we need feedback on our feedback.