Why brands need to surrender control (at least partially)

Control: A sensation

A 'sense of control', as this article asserts, is a need in itself. Control can be an illusion, or set of illusions. The environments and practices we construct around us to give us a false comfort, and support our project of convincing ourselves that we're in control. Unfortunately for the human psyche, the age of automation is diminishing the luxury of true control. As machines continue to think on our behalf - like pseudo-guardians who appear to know what is best for our fallible human hearts - and intricate systems determine inputs and outputs that govern the fabrics of our lives, control begins to slip away from us. The user of the machine becomes the 'bystander', and the only small measure of control that we are afforded is nothing but a placebo in the form of what this clever article calls 'idiot buttons'.

In user experience design, giving the user control is paramount to a successful experience. If that's not entirely feasible, even the option of perceived control will do. Take this user's example from Amazon. She felt cheated and mislead after trying to cancel a product listing she had created on the e-commerce giant's website. Her expectations not met because she had not been afforded the right amount of control to have a satisfying experience. She ended up feeling disappointed and stuck, confined to a tight, windowless corner of an experience that she could no longer control.

It is this same shortfall that leads countless users to cancel their orders on sites like Amazon. Essentially, Amazon failed to provide its user with adequate freedom and control and suffered the worst possible consequence for its core business - customer drop-off. If a giant like Amazon can't keep its users happy with sufficient illusions of control, them who's to say the rest of the world's interfaces are succeeding at one of usability's most important heuristics?

Control as a design principle

Putting the user at the centre of a design is one thing. Putting him or her in control, well, that's another altogether. Jakob Nielsen lists user control and freedom as a heuristic for user interface design. He's a great supporter of the whole 'redo/undo' thing. That's cool. It gives the user autonomy and control of his actions within the system, and provides him with the freedom to correct his inevitable mistakes.

Similarly, Theo Mandel cites control as a golden rule of interface design. A user's interaction with a system should be orchestrated by flexibility, the ability to change focus and reversibility, among others. Moreover, people crave information. But that's not enough. Along with this fundamental desire for more information comes the need to be selective. People need to have the freedom (and control, naturally) to choose and filter information as it suits them, so as not to cause cognitive overload.

Paranoia and user dystopia

'Internet promoters emphasise the agency of the user and not the server', writes Wendy Hyui Kyong Chun in Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics. The Internet user acts 'affirmatively and deliberately' if he wants to access information. He needs power. He needs to be empowered. The perception of control is an antidote to the paranoia of the cyber age. Users are often anxious, culturally and psychologically. There are widespread concerns about privacy, of sexual integrity, of safeguarding decency, and of morality. People worry about their information, and they should. So how can we design interfaces that offer reassurance, if not a guarantee, of security?

Customer supremacy

A common thread in the discourse around branding and marketing and cross-platform communications in recent years has been this: the customer is now in control. It's nothing new. And it's a fact. Brands must adapt to the Age of the Customer. In this context, customers have more knowledge, access to information and control than ever before.

They'll know the truth before your company can PR the shit out of it. They'll also know if your product or service sucks, or if your online experience is lousy. Mark Ingwer examines the iPod, a prime example of a product that enhanced both customer and user control. For the first time, people could become DJs at the flick of a dial. I hate to punt Apple like the rest of the planet, but their designers certainly understood the value of control from a psycho-social level, and smartly built this principle into the company's flagship mass market product. Customer supremacy is frightening for many brands, especially those that breezed through the formative years of the Age of the Seller. However, it also an opportunity to foster greater customer loyalty and satisfaction, if your brand succeeds in staying relevant.