No one can argue with the ambition to make life a bit easier for people, but how far should meeting this go? When does help become a take-over, and suggestions become prescriptions?
I have been thinking about how, in our everyday lives, we have accepted a certain degree of help and support from the organisations we deal with. A very obvious example is Google, which offers the autocomplete service. I expect we have all become so used to it, we don’t really see it happening. But this is essentially Google at work trying to read your mind: Google explicitly call these autocomplete “predictions” rather than “suggestions,” and there’s a good reason for that. Autocomplete is designed to help people complete a search they were intending to do, not to suggest new types of searches to be performed. These are Google’s best predictions of the query we were likely to continue entering.
However, the little helps I am thinking of relate more to the fact that we are now faced with many choices, working out what’s best can actually be a chore as much as a blessing. A suggestion of what to go for then arrives as a welcome blessing.
- Amazon lets you know what people who viewed the item you are considering also looked at. And you can also see what things were bought at the same time at the time. I am interested in ‘The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous’ and so apparently I should also be keen on the latest offering from Barack Obama. I am flattered but not convinced.
- What about Netflix, which presents its listings with a neat little score of how likely it is that I will like that content? I was in two minds about investing time in a new series, Emily in Paris, but it’s ok as apparently, it’s a 98% match. To be fair, the score has to be pretty high. If you think about it, 50% would mean 50% I like it, ie a one in two chance that I don’t! I think I might rely on what people around me recommend.
There are also places where you can need to put a bit of work in yourself first, but then can sit back and reap the rewards.
- In Ocado, you can not only look back over what you have bought before for inspiration (check out ‘Favourites’), but you can also set up your ‘Regulars’ and effectively get your repeat order ready to go for each successive order. Not for me as I am all up for a bit of variety (not many other opportunities to indulge in this fancy during lockdowns).
- Money Saving Expert recently launched a new extension to its energy switching service which it claims is the first-ever free, full energy auto-compare-and-switch tool. ‘MSE’s new tool works entirely differently to existing standard approaches in the market. Instead of bulk-switching those signed up, it essentially automates, speeds up and simplifies the individual comparison process most people should be doing for themselves. You tell it your energy preferences, the ‘Pick Me A Tariff’ tool selects your top deal based on those, and then each anniversary it notifies you of the new top tariff fitting those preferences, and lets you switch to it with just one click.’
And what’s interesting with that last example above is that not only is about making life easier (taking the hassle out of comparing offers and making choosing easier), it’s also about saving money and getting a good deal. Now if only there was a meal planner tool that sophisticated!
