The subject of human memory — and its implications for design and customer experience — is endlessly fascinating. Take “state dependence” for instance.

The concept is simple: we remember things more readily that also occurred in our current state of mind. For example, if our partner does something that irritates us, our mind can easily flood with every grievance from the last decade. Arguments can easily escalate for this very reason!

From an evolutionary perspective you can see why this feature makes sense — immediate recall of similar events might help you out of danger. Closer to home though, the implications for customer experience are profound, because it seems to validate something that makes sense intuitively — the impact of interactions is cumulative.

Instead of treating each encounter as an isolated event, we end up with a mental filing cabinet labeled, “All the times my airline / accountant / etc. infuriated me." One incident triggers recall of the others, and a straw can easily break the camel’s back.

Two big implications:

1. Consistent quality matters enormously.

2. Tending to high-frequency gripes (however trivial) is vital, because their impact is accumulative — a crucial insight that's often overlooked when issues are prioritized!

See this post on LinkedIn