How Uber, Chrome, and Netflix take advantage of the idleness aversion?
It’s a common belief that people would be so happy if they could stay idle. But even for the laziest ones, it’s not the truth. A recent study on human psychology said that people are much happier when they are engaged in activities and not being idle. All they need is a reason to be busy.
Many of us would go mad if we end up in a long hour traffic block or being stuck at home without power and internet connectivity. This long dreaded wait could spoil our mood and enthusiasm.
A common user will feel this idleness when he surfaces through the web and helping the user to get engaged in some activity will rejoice him. Many leading firms across the globe are immensely trying to get the user occupied within their platform.
Now let’s look at how various firms had dealt with human psychology and used it for their advantage.
Uber
Before Uber, hiring a ride was all about booking a cab and waiting for it to pick up us. The waiting time lasted from five to fifty minutes and all we could do was to be patient and hope that the ride would be here in the next minute. What Uber did was a path-breaking one, they had introduced a gamified view to show us where the ride is, and how is it approaching us with the expected time. That simple gamified view of the ride and map helped people to get over the boredom of waiting. They could watch the ride approaching and could get a coffee in the meantime. Later, Ola, Swiggy, and Zomato had adapted this to their platforms. It’s a clear sign of people’s love for such features.
Google Chrome
What’s worse than an unstable or poor network connection and you have to open a browser and wait till the connection appears. Chrome handled the people by giving a T-Rex game, a simple game enough to get one engaged for the waiting time. There are also many other offline browser games available in the market.
Netflix
The video streaming giant Netflix had used the best UI and UX ways to enhance the user experience. They had made their video thumbnails play videos when the mouse hovers over it. This helped the users to get a better context and genre of the video. Later YouTube, too, had approached the same method.
Addressing such basic psychology can have a greater impact on the user’s mind, and the users will fall in love with it. I am looking forward to seeing how Restaurants, Airports and Rail Stations would handle the same.
