Beware Flawed Predictions from Animations

“Keep your eye on the ball” is advice often given to baseball batters to prevent them from getting ahead of themselves. Those same words might be good advice for people watching the game at home, and for the same reason. Researchers at Northwestern University and University of Minnesota point out how when people see a baseball hit with great force, they often have a momentary feeling of certainty the ball will go out of the park. Maybe a misleading feeling of certainty.
     Advancing computer technologies combined with increasingly sophisticated consumer expectations have led retailers of all sorts to use an abundance of animation in demonstrating the benefits of products and services on websites and in personal selling. The Northwestern/Minnesota researchers urge people to show special caution with these animations. It’s too easy for your shoppers to be misled when mentally projecting what will happen next.
     People readily project ahead from animations which show trajectories, such as animated charts of weight loss or completion of construction. We’re all overloaded with information, so we welcome tools that help us get to the point. Also, many consumers place extra trust in a computer-generated animation largely because the animation is using a more sophisticated technology than still pictures. “What’s newer must be better,” they say.
     And because animations are more lifelike than text descriptions or still pictures, consumers remember with enhanced certainty any mistaken conclusions. A few days later, what was actually false is recalled as true.
     Putting this all together, you protect your business and your consumers by being aware of the dangers of flawed predictions from animated demonstrations.

• Give disclaimers within the animation. Phrasing in the spirit of “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” is good. But it’s not enough. Animate the disclaimer by showing a flashing question mark at the end of the animated trajectory. Or show a variety of possible directions the trend might go.
• For items where a misinterpretation might lead to a lawsuit, regulatory inquiry, or loss of good will from an essential customer, present still images along with the animation. When the Northwestern/Minnesota researchers replaced the animation with still images the study participants could flip through at their own pace, mistaken predictions faded away.
• Be careful to interpret correctly when shown animations by a vendor. The researchers specifically warn businesspeople to watch out when interpreting animated sales projections.

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