Change aversion in the era of a change being a new constant

We live in an era of constant change and, in fact, change is a new constant. Today’s technology company understands - if the product does not change over time, its users will and its competitors will.

While tech companies work with principle 'change or die' - delight and amusement are not customer's immediate natural response.

Change aversion is a state of discomfort when something familiar is replaced with something unfamiliar. Despite the best intentions of designers and product managers, users often experience confusion when faced with a new interface or changed functionality.

Kahneman (author of ''Thinking, fast and slow'') and Tversky (1979), in their famous prospect theory, highlight that people place more value on losing what they already possess than on getting the same thing if they don't yet have that. Since changes take away what we have, even if it's replaced by something that is rationally better than what we have lost, it may not be perceived as a net gain - at least not until we feel familiarity and ownership of the new product.

Rick Maurer identifies 3 levels of resistance to change shown on the figure above. The higher the level - the more difficult it becomes to get it resolved in the customer's mind.

Google has conducted extensive research and analysis and developed a framework of actions to minimize change aversion:

1. Plan in detail the stages of the launch

2. Measure user impact prior to launch

3. Prime users for the upcoming change

4. Explain the benefits of the change

5. Provide users transition guidance and support

6. Give users an opportunity to switch between new and old UI

7. Monitor and manage the change over time

8. Let users send feedback directly

9. Address your users' issues quickly

10. Tell your users what you improved

It is also important to understand whether you are dealing with change aversion or not. An example from Google' personalized homepage, iGoogle, change might suit a good example. Google tracked a number of metrics via a weekly in-product survey, to understand the impact of changes and new features. After launching a major redesign, they saw an initial decline in their user satisfaction metric. However, this metric recovered over time, showing that change aversion was the cause, and when customers got accustomed to the new design, they liked it. With this information, Google was able to make a more confident decision to keep the new design.

What change aversion is NOT, however, is getting a product for the first time - such as a your first car or smartphone. There is little drawback to getting something you have never had before. If the product is very difficult to learn or use, it cannot be because of change aversion, but due to major design flaws or non working functionalities, or to expectations exceeding reality.

Share your story of how you experienced change aversion with your product, how you measure it and frameworks you use to minimize it.