The Concept of Operational Transparency
Opening up the black box by letting users see what is happening in the background, in real-time, instead of just presenting results, to increase perceived value and tolerated waiting times.
- Book: HBR's 10 Must Reads 2020: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review
- Summary: "Operational Transparency - Make your processes visible to customers and your customers visible to employees."
- By: Ryan W. Buell, 2019 (via Harvard Business Review)
Published in April 2023
I came across this UX recommendation when reading through one article in the book “HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2020: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review”.
While the research presented focuses on user interfaces of websites such as travel search engines, the general idea might actually apply to any interaction - even to everyday conversations with clients by email or in meetings.
“We then surveyed people about how valuable they perceived the website to be. No matter how long people had waited, they always considered the website to be more valuable when it showed the work it was doing for them. They also reported a higher willingness to pay, a perception of higher quality, and a greater desire to use the site again. What’s more, they were also considerably less sensitive to their wait time when they experienced operational transparency.”
Maybe surprisingly, in the study users are not just happy to wait longer, they also believe the results are better:
“We found that when people could see the work that was going on behind the scenes, they perceived that more effort went into the delivery of the service. They also believed that the service provider had more expertise and was being more thorough. They appreciated that effort and quality, and they in turn valued the service more.”
However, it might be difficult to find the right balance - there is such a thing as too much information too:
“In addition, consumers shouldn’t be force-fed transparency. Rather, they should get to decide when they want to see more.”
As someone who builds web applications and also provides other services to business clients, this study highlighted to me how important it can be to clearly document what we do and to be are smart about how we present this information to clients to increase the perceived value of our products and services.
(Prompt for Craiyon to generate the header image: “Operational Transparency, Make your processes visible to customers and your customers visible to employees.“)
