The Halo Effect
By Gregory Ronczewski, Director of Product Design at Ibbaka. See his skill profile.
I am finishing the Customer Value Journey for Ibbaka. I wrote a post five installments ago, including a sketch of how the value and price swim lanes may influence the design. The concept went through a couple of iterations informed by the feedback from the team but also from sources that surprised me, to say the least. We worked out a way to identify and describe several critical "moments" for the customer and the company, in this case Ibbaka. This moved he design towards selecting a way of indicating the level of perceived value at that moment, ranging from very satisfied to not satisfied at all. There are countless examples of a beautiful curved line connecting each critical journey moment. Many, many examples. Does it mean that the fluctuating line is the best way to capture the customer's sentiment? Perhaps, but without too much thinking—thinking is often behind the lack of ability to come up with a sound solution—I decided to play with concentric circles. Instead of a linear representation over time. I wanted to try a "present moment" approach, which aligns better with how we call the text boxes - the value moments. One circle for a low level of satisfaction, two for a medium and three for an entirely satisfactory perception of value. Of course, this can be reversed to show the negative sentiment - one for a light dislike, two for a more substantial negative feel and finally, three for missing a lot of value. As a designer, I was happy creating small graphical elements in Illustrator, applying transparency, so the circles became translucent.
Next, I imported the finished graphic into google slides, where we decided to host our Customer Value Journey. I wrote another post describing the process of coming to terms with the designer—that's me—losing exclusive rights to be the guardian of the graphics. I was somewhat disappointed seeing that the size or the scale of my circular icons did not snugly fit onto each swim lane but spilled off its translucent colour - from the emotional value lane to the economic lane in some sort of halo effect. But then, I realized this was precisely the effect I was looking for. Nothing happens in isolation. Everything is connected. Satisfaction noted in the emotional value lane will affect the results of the economic value outcome and vice versa.
“The Halo Effect says that any one element in a user’s experience with a company will rub off on their interpretation of other elements and their feelings about the company as a whole. Good design in one part of a website will make people like other parts better (and like the company better), but the opposite is also true.”
Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949) was an American psychologist who first presented the law of effect in the context of learning, leading to the development of "operant conditioning" within Behaviorism - learning from the consequences of behaviour. In 1920, Thorndike presented a theory proposing that one negative perception of an experience will affect others, even unrelated areas of the experience. He called it a halo effect, borrowing the idea from art - many beautiful examples from the Russian Orthodox Church, where Saints were depicted wearing a halo behind or above their heads. However, there is more to this simple explanation. Consider this - many stories from different religions describing good deeds, miracles, or unexplained healings contributed to a holy person - a person who, if captured on a canvas, would definitely wear a halo above the head. One may speculate that this is a clever way to visually indicate such individuals' effect on people. But, perhaps instead of thinking it is a metaphor, we could follow Thorndike's reasoning and accept the impact as a fact. And not just people but also communities, businesses or, in most recent times, platforms, where the first impression can win a new client or cast a long shadow, sometimes based on a trivial mistake or misrepresentation.
There is yet another way of looking at the halo effect. It is the energy. Some individuals carry vast amounts of positive energy. We all know someone like that - a friend or a family member. After meeting with them, anything seems possible, and no obstacle presents a problem. The same energy could be embedded in actions, clicks, responses, information, and interactions with software. Designers strive to create a delight leading to the adoption of the solution. At the same time, slow loading time, a button that doesn't work, and a question in the login form that doesn't make sense could negatively affect the overall experience, casting a damaging spell.
The same is true for skills, roles and teams. There are no sharply defined borders. A skill or competency spills off to another, affecting it positively or negatively. It is up to us to manage those relationships, remembering that the first impression matters the most.
Ibbaka Talio, the skill and talent management platform, recommends skills based on initial input during the onboarding process. The recommended skills are connected to each other - we call them associated or complementary skills. This is the halo effect at work - if you have Project Management skills, your Time Management and Communication skills will be present. See for yourself, sign up and have a go with Ibbaka Talio.
