One of the most frequent questions we’ve gotten from friends and family about the Surprizle product has been about the Easy Way Out (EWO) and why it even exists.
Well, way back in the misty days of yore – I think it was 2022 – we did some testing of the Surprizle product prior to launch. We received lots of valuable feedback from participants – but one of the most important was that just under 20% of our participants absolutely hated the idea that they would “have to work for” a gift that they received.
Speaking with a few individuals, I asked “How is solving a small puzzle or game different from unwrapping a physical gift you’d received for a birthday or holiday? Both represent barriers to accessing a prize. Both require a bit of extra time to open the gift.” Responses varied widely but most fell into the “I don’t know how it’s different, but it just is” camp.
Which was kind of vague. But still important enough that anyone launching a new gifting product would want to give some thought about these customers during the product design stage.
So, this project, which started as a way to gamify digital gift giving, would now need a way to un-gamify the process for a solid-sized group of people who didn’t want to experience the hassle of unlocking or solving a gift.
To this day, I’m not sure who suggested needing “An Easy Way Out” for customers who didn’t want to be obligated to work for their gift, but the idea had legs. And when presented to our testing group, it was a definite hit.
And so the EWO was born.
But just when we were entering our final round of testing, we received this feedback from customers who identified as potential gift givers: So you mean if I spend a half hour designing a fun and challenging puzzle for a family member….they can just click a button and skip it altogether?
That was the plan.
“But that hardly seems fair.”
Ugh. That word. Such a problematic four-letter F word. Anyone with kids knows that ‘fair’ never means the same thing for anyone.
So we floated the idea: would you be willing to pay a bit extra on your gift to ensure the recipient has to solve the puzzle?
The answer was a resounding yes.
Which is how we arrived at the current iteration of Surprizle. Where the default gift permits the recipient to take the EWO. But also give an option where the gift giver can disable this feature in order to keep the game afoot.
The advice we give to people designing puzzles for friends or family, though: if you really want them to be solved, don’t make the challenges too hard. Unless you 100% know that your recipient will love the challenge. Otherwise, just keep things light. Don’t be afraid to be silly or playful. Use inside jokes, share memes. Dialing back the difficulty can dial up the fun.
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