Basic Necessities: Maslow's Pyramid of Essential Needs
In the realm of product design, a balance between innovation and familiarity is crucial to cater to our evolutionary human need for safety and security. This balance ensures emotional and functional comfort, proactively integrating safety measures from the early stages of development.
The need for safety, a basic human need present in all animals, including humans, is often manifested in the "fight or flight" response. Products should offer protection and 'shelter' to consumers, as our decisions and actions are often based on sustaining or improving our circumstances.
Designers have a vital role in ensuring products offer protection and safety to consumers. The MAYA Principle (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) is one approach that fosters user comfort and trust. By introducing novel, advanced features within a familiar framework, it addresses both the human need for emotional safety alongside curiosity.
Ensuring clear and proactive security and privacy features is another key approach. Embedding privacy-by-design and robust data protection from the start helps users feel protected against digital threats such as cyberattacks or privacy breaches. Transparency regarding data use, minimization of unnecessary data collection, encryption, and regulatory compliance all support trust and a sense of security.
Incorporating safe-by-design (SbD) concepts is also essential. Actively "engineering out" potential risks during product development helps reassure users that their physical and digital safety is prioritized. This is especially important in technology domains where safety concerns are paramount, such as wearables or IoT devices.
Balancing innovation with reliability is another important aspect. Introducing advanced features while maintaining intuitive and easily understandable interactions reduces cognitive load and emotional discomfort. This balance supports user retention and promotes confident, secure usage patterns.
In physical products, safety features can be incorporated to prevent unwanted effects. For example, pre-tied knots on hoodie cords can prevent accidental choking.
Digital products should also include appropriate warnings prior to irreversible actions to protect users. Highlighting the button leading to irreversible actions in warning dialogs can guide attention away from safer options, and therefore should not be pre-selected.
Trust is one of the most important aspects of e-commerce, and images or text that suggest or guarantee safety encourage users to trust and complete purchases. Financial products are often advertised using imagery that plays on our safety needs, depicting a safe, secure, and happy family.
Google's mobile phone emergency information details can be accessed directly by paramedics or passers-by, bypassing the lock screen, in case of an emergency. Accessing this information from the lock screen requires five steps, minimizing the chances that personal information can be seen by a prying third party with a short glance.
E. McKay's work, "Are you sure? How to write effective confirmations," discusses the importance of effective confirmations in digital product design to avoid accidental actions with irreversible consequences. Effective confirmations are critical in protecting users from unintended actions and promoting a sense of security.
In conclusion, effective product design meets human evolutionary safety needs by creating an experience that feels both secure and trustworthy through familiar yet progressive interfaces, transparent and rigorous privacy/security safeguards, and proactive risk mitigation embedded into the design process. These strategies foster user confidence, satisfaction, and adoption.
[1] Cooper, A. (2010). Aboutface: The Essentials of Interaction Design. New Riders. [2] International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). (2015). IEC 62443-4-1: Systems integration — Part 4-1: Product development, design, and integration. [3] ISO 13423-1:2016. (2016). Ergonomics — Human-centred design for interactive systems — Part 1: Conceptual modelling. [4] Schneier, B. (2004). Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World. Wiley. [5] Schneier, B. (2018). Data Security: A Guide to Keeping Your Information Private and Safe. Wiley.
UI designers should incorporate safety measures and privacy-by-design principles in health-and-wellness apps, ensuring user data is protected against breaches. This approach fosters trust, catering to the human need for security and emotional comfort.
In line with the MAYA Principle, science and education-and-self-development platforms could incorporate novel features within a familiar framework, offering an advanced yet acceptable experience that addresses both the human need for emotional safety and curiosity. Clear and proactivesecurity features, supported by transparency, data minimization, encryption, regulatory compliance, and risk mitigation, would further promote trust and a sense of security.
