Trust, the secret ingredient

Generating trust is building a bridge that connects two sides, and this is a fundamental ingredient for life.

This is a powerful idea that I learned over the last few years working as a Product Designer. I heard coworkers say, many times, something like, “everything our customers touch should evoke a sense of Trust.”

In short, I can say that as human beings we have a similar brain system when it comes to survival situations, which is why we need to understand it (learn more about the limbic system). We know that when we are in a dangerous situation, we can flee, attack, or freeze, and it is the same for most living beings on planet Earth. On the other hand, when we feel safe, we move forward as if there were no tomorrow, and this is wonderful, because it lets us learn to ride a bike, build buildings, or jump out of a plane with a parachute.

In human relationships, we are constantly transacting, and for a transaction to happen an ingredient is needed: trust. To explain what Trust is, I will give an example:

"Amanda went to the countryside, and while walking around she saw a lake, and there was a bridge over that lake. Amanda glanced at the bridge and in milliseconds imagined that it would be possible to cross it safely. The object that is meant to be trustworthy is the bridge.

At first she wanted to be on the other side of the lake, and since she had seen a bridge before, it was easy for her to recognize that this was a usable way to reach her goal, and this helped create a little trust.

After a few seconds Amanda looked more closely at the bridge and noticed that, although old, the wood looked sturdy, and this generated more trust. Then, as she put her first foot on the bridge, she checked that everything was fine, felt at ease, and began the crossing. The bridge was a familiar object to Amanda, and its elements were recognized and identified as trustworthy to a degree sufficient for her to feel safe crossing it.

When she reached the other side and walked for a few moments, a young woman came up to her and offered a guava. She smiled and accepted it, but after the young woman left, she decided not to eat it. She thought everything had been very sudden and strange, nothing familiar.

The lack of information about the young woman who gave the guava, the fact that she did not know her or have any references, left her a little suspicious, and for this reason the transaction was not completed (Amanda did not eat the guava the young woman gave her)."

When it comes to transactions of financial value, this equation becomes exponentially harder. With these examples I hope I have clarified what Trust is and how hard it can be to develop it.

If we think about how to build Trust through Design, we need to offer some basic elements, such as an interface, a task, or a communication process that is familiar.

There are, of course, other elements that are essential to building Trust, such as a stable, functional, and efficient service, and the absence of critical incidents that could damage the company's brand. These are only generic examples showing that building Trust is arduous and continuous work.

When I say that Trust is a secret ingredient, I mean it is so obvious that many people do not see it. Trust is something we learn from the time we are newborns and begin to trust our caregivers. Yet it is a factor that turns out to be neglected in a large share of companies and digital products. It is very easy to remember a service or product that we do not trust or that has frustrated us before.

For this reason, there is clearly a great opportunity to think about whether what we produce will be used and perceived by people as something trustworthy. It takes a lot of study and work, because trust is an element that involves human behavior. One way to reduce the chance of mistakes is to test what you are proposing and put it in front of other people to be criticized.

Sources

https://www.news-medical.net/health/Limbic-System-and-Behavior-(Portuguese).aspx

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-60832008000200003