Over the years, I’ve had my share of minor Eureka moments. The latest one came while feeling a dull rage build inside of me over how much time and energy it takes to get a game of football together.
I belong to four different football groups. Hey, I like football. And every week each of these groups gets a WhatsApp group conversation going to see if we’re going to get a game together. You can probably picture what happens. One person asks who’s in and somehow, every single week, 40 messages crop up and we all have to read through every one of them to figure out if we’ve got our ten players or not.
The magic of buttons
I like chatting. But life is busy. This message overload that occurs four times per week got me thinking: why can’t a yes or no question be answered with a simple yes or no? So yes, I’ve been thinking about buttons. They keep our pants up, get our appliances going, buttons make our lives so easy. The Yes, No, Maybe buttons I’ve been picturing would definitely make our lives easier as well.
That football game? I could post about it, asking who’s in for football at 6 pm, and instead of an outpouring of messages, everyone in my group would simply hit Yes, No or Maybe for a running tally of how many people are in. No muss, no fuss, no messages.
And if you think about it, football is just the tip of the iceberg:
“Want to come for a quick beer Friday night? Yes, No, Maybe....”
“Are you buying a ticket for the concert next month? Yes, No, Maybe...”
“Can we expect you at the family reunion? Yes, No, Maybe...”
All the info you need, none of the incessant babble. Ah, simplicity. The ultimate user experience.
But wait, there’s more...
Why stop there? I can envision setting conditions. For instance - back to the football game - the game requires ten players. So if we get ten people who hit Yes, that means it’s a go, and we can set it to send an automatic notification to everyone.
Or if you’re planning an event and need to know who’s bringing what, simply set the buttons to read Alcohol, Cheese, Bread, Chairs, More Alcohol, Football, First Aid Kit, or whatever it is you need, and everyone can click on what they’re bringing. That way everyone knows what’s taken care of and what isn’t, so there’s no excuse for your three cheapest friends to all show up with a bag of potato chips and act like they thought that’s what was needed.
I think we’ll call this one the annoyance-minimizing Eureka. We’ll see how it works out.
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