In 2018, Brandon Speck wrote an article in www.livescience.com about “Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment“. It details a series of experiments which show how important context is to humans in how they perceive world around them.

200 subjects were shown 1,000 coloured dots and asked to identify which were blue, and which were purple. The dots ranged from very blue to very purple (a video which includes examples is shown below)

200 people were shown an equal number of blue and purple spots, and categorised them accordingly, roughly 50/50.

But then the conditions changed and the number of blue dots was reduced, and purple dots increased. Surprisingly though, this did not proportionately affect the results.

Subjects began categorising spots as purple which they had previously identified as blue. This continued even when they were warned that there were less blue dots.

The participants continued mistaking purple dots for blue ones even when they were specifically warned that the number of blue dots was going to decrease or when they were offered a $10 reward for responding to repeated colors the same way at the end of the study as they did at the beginning of the study.

Once this behaviour is recognised, it can be seen across society, the way humans interact with each other, and the services we use.

When building a digital service, the needs which are de-prioritised when defining MVP can be flagged as critical showstoppers by stakeholders when the service is put in front of users. But don’t loose sight of the historical context when that priority was decided earlier on in the project.

If a low priority need is now crucial, it’s more likely to be a sign of how well the rest of the service is working, rather that a mistake in how the need was originally prioritised.

It’s important to appreciate the journey a service has taken, and the fortitude to be in a position where the biggest issues with the current service (such as users don’t get emailed when the status of a service changes) were once the aspirational dreams of an MVP.

Strive to be better, but also take some happiness from what you have.

Read the article at www.livescience.com/62962-blue-or-purple-dots-illusion.html and view the report at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap8731 [Paywall]