The Business of Removing Negatives from a Product

Rationally choosing the irrational

Why do people keep buying Apple products if they are not technically great and there are better value alternatives? Why do people keep eating at McDonald’s if the food is so bad for your health?

I was asking myself these type of questions lately, and I realised that it has to do with the part of how people perceive things. And I also understood that why people choose these types of brands. And one of the reasons is because they are able to remove negatives from your decision making process.

Removing negatives from UX

When designing or introducing new products on the market, it’s important to understand that the business of eliminating negatives in a product or service is a critical part. Why? Because certain little weird things make us anxious that puts us off buying things. For example, the most common one is being frightened of looking foolish in front of your peers when buying an unknown product. Before I explain that, let’s understand two behavioural economics terms — satisficing and maximising.

Satisficing and maximising

Herbert Simon, a Nobel prize winner in economics, coined two terms that are important in understanding how we make decision. The terms are satisficing and maximising. Which are two models of human behaviour.

Maximising

To generalise, let’s say you are planning a wedding. In this case, you are most likely, to choose what’s the best and most memorable space to celebrate. You would definitely not choose a McDonald’s but would prefer to rent a great restaurant. Or let’s say that you are buying a new car, you will start comparing all the details like consumption, speed, comfort, etc. In this case, you are maximising.

When we maximise, we look for the best and most rational thing to choose from. Maximisers rely on external sources for evaluation. Rather than…