Easy does it – the psychology of why we adopt (or reject) technologies.

Over the 2 year tenure we’ve discussed and progressed much around the subjects of “Innovation, Technology and Digital” and also why new technologies are not adopted as readily as they might be available.  I think there were some really thought provoking messages in the talk from BTs Dr Nicola Millard at the recent PDS Summit so I asked if she would summarise some of this talk so we could share as part of our end Tenure content:

Easy does it – the psychology of why we adopt (or reject) technologies.

By Dr Nicola J. Millard, Principal Innovation Partner at BT.

We often think of laziness as something negative. But we all have a tendency to be lazy when things get in our way. When we hit something difficult, we either give up entirely, or we take short cuts to get to our goal.

Laziness can be very evident when it comes to the adoption of technologies. Our research over the years has highlighted one consistent ask from customers – make things easy for me! 

Data from our latest 2023 ‘Autonomous Customer’ study shows that eighty-nine percent of customers think that organisations need to make it easier to contact them by phone, webchat, e-mail, messaging, and social media (a rise of seven percent since our last survey in 2020). Sixty-nine percent also said that they often found it tiring and exhausting to deal with organisations.

When it comes to introducing new technologies it becomes evident that our behaviours are not emotion neutral. Idly wondering why a nearby road is closed off is very different to when your house is on fire. One you might browse social media for. The other is likely to get you reaching for the telephone (emailing the fire service to report a blaze is, I suspect, extremely rare).

For a start, our behaviours in crisis are very different to when we are calm. Making things easy is paramount for customers in crisis. Many of their cognitive resources are distracted by their reaction to the incident, as well as hormones rampaging around their body and brain. This makes logical thought difficult and retention of anything into short term memory almost impossible. Technologies that present complex choices or deliver a lot of information all at once are extremely difficult for crisis customers to navigate.

In more positive situations, especially where there are outcomes that people want – e.g. making their neighbourhood safer – they may tolerate a bit more complexity, but they still don’t want to work too hard.

When it comes to making things easy, what do we need to think about when we are designing new digital services and technologies?

The first thing to think about is whether these technologies are making things easier or harder for customers. Digital services often volley much of the effort into the court of the customer, so making them accessible and easy is important for adoption to happen. If they aren’t easy, they will either switch to trusted traditional channels or give up entirely.

The next thing is to consider if they are making things easier for the employee. Employees are people too! They bring in their consumer expectations through the office door, and they also want to have an easy life. Enterprise technologies often require more effort to use than consumer ones (mainly because consumer tech can be discarded if they aren’t working for customers, employees are a captive audience).

If technology makes it easy on both sides, you are in a win:win situation. If either side find it hard, it might be an uphill struggle to get it adopted.

It is also always worth thinking about why people might adopt the technology. This tends to depend on some horrendous psychology, which can be boiled down to the three ‘U’s:

• Is the technology USEFUL? Most technologies are inherently useful (otherwise, there’s no point to them), but bad past experiences, a lack of knowledge, or simply not understanding what they can do can cause people to avoid them. Education is key here.
• Is it USABLE? Technologies need to be easy to use, and accessible to everyone (including those with disabilities).
• Who else is USING it? If “people like them” are adopting these technologies other people may be more inclined to use them. This can be a subtle way of nudging people (whether citizens or employees) towards certain technologies and channels, because it’s often their friends, family, or peers - rather than the organisation - who will influence behaviour change.

Maybe Bill Gates was onto something when he said: “I always choose a lazy person to do a job. Because a lazy person will always find an easy way to do it”! Certainly when it comes to the world of technology, easy does it!