What is Persuasive Design?
Persuasive design is an area of design practice that focuses on influencing human behavior through a product’s or service’s characteristics. Based on psychological and social theories, persuasive design is often used in e-commerce, organizational management, and more recently in digital apps via UX design.
Process of Persuasive Design?
Process of persuasion can be broken in to 4 components:
The Source – The persuader who wants to influence the user’s behaviour. This is usually the designers or developers of the product.
The Goal – The goal can be improving a specific KPI, like retention, engagement, session reactivation. All persuasion is goal-oriented. Goals can also be set up to be short term, mid-term and long term, as we will see below.
The Medium – These are user facing components, UI elements, messages or widgets used, which the persuader directs at the audience.
The Audience – The users who can help the persuader achieve the goal.
Persuasive models switch users from slow thinking to fast thinking:
In his highly anticipated book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains the two systems that drive the way we think in our everyday routines.
System 1 and System 2 are two distinct modes of decision making:
System 1 is an automatic, fast and often unconscious way of thinking. It is autonomous and efficient, requiring little energy or attention, but is prone to biases and systematic errors.
System 2 is an effortful, slow and controlled way of thinking. It requires energy and can’t work without attention but, once engaged, it has the ability to filter the instincts of System 1.
Guess?...Which system did you use when looking at problems above?
Most persuasive design patterns focus on switching the user from system 2 to system 1 which then forms an effective easy to practice habit pattern.
Techniques of Persuasive Design:
Following well established principles are widely used by UX designers and knowingly or unknowingly by game designers, when working with persuasive techniques:
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1) Scarcity:
If it's running out, must be in demand. I want it, to avoid missing out!
This principle tells us that people are more likely to want something if they think it is available only for a limited time or if it is in short supply. FOMO or fear of missing out is a powerful persuasive force in this principal.
2) Authority:
I am more likely to act on advise from a trusted source or an expert.
This principle is about influencing behaviour through credibility. People are more likely to take an action or make decision if the message comes from a credible and authoritative source. It does not mean it has to be a real person can be a virtual guide or a guidance system that onboard and advises the users.
