How your product influences behaviour

Is there a link between the shape, look and feel of a product and how we behave with it?

I asked myself this question when I was studying industrial design in Canada many years ago.

I decided to create an experiment: I designed several types of switches and asked my colleagues and other people on campus to "test" and observed how they pressed on all different buttons.

I created the range from a tactile switch that looked like a fingerprint to a big red emergency button and everything in between.

The initial concept is the same: it is a switch.

The execution of this concept is different, and all buttons have different shape and languages.

Long story short, as you may have guessed by now, the behaviour are immensely different depending on which button is pressed, from the gentle touch to the fingerprint style to the "hammering with the first" for the emergency button.

So, what can we conclude?

We can safely say that the product you build shapes the response and experience of the user.

At the early stages of a venture, it is essential not to rush into the idea's execution and find ways to test the market to assess their response.

It also helps differentiate the original concept from its execution when you are further down the track: your concept may be good, and the current execution may not.