Have you ever noticed that when you’re near a police car and they have their sirens on, they often sound their horn. Have you also noticed that when they sound the horn, the tone of the siren changes?
If you have noticed this, you’ve noticed one of the most elegant pieces of software design of the modern era.
Previous designs required the driver to reach out and flick a switch on the dashboard to change the tone of the siren. In this new design, the horn IS the switch. When they sound the horn, the siren changes.
This simple design change does two things. It’s substantially more sympathetic with the needs of the user. (A word I like to use for this sort of thing is “sympatico”.) But the design change has zero side-effects on the desired outcomes – in fact the fact the horn also sounds could actually be construed as useful within the context of how that device is used.
This design change happened because someone REALLY considered the user journey and customer experience and wasn’t afraid to change the status quo. That is what you should do in your business.