Persuasion architectures: Nudging People to do the Right Thing

Persuasion Architectures:
Nudging People to do the Right Thing
Rob van Tol
Senior User Experience Consultant
November 2010

What is Persuasion
Persuasion is an attempt to change attitudes or behaviours or both (without
using coercion or deception).
B.J. Fogg, Stanford University www.bjfogg.com
Persuasion … is the process of moving others by argument to a position or
course of action either temporarily or permanently.
Robert Cialdini, Arizona State University
Persuasion Architecture creates an experience that leads your visitors to find
what they want by acknowledging that these two processes – buying and
selling – occur in tandem and take place on every page of a Web site.
Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg, & Lisa T. Davis, Future Now Inc

Changing attitudes is really really hard:
 Clunk Click Every Trip 
 Don’t Drink and Drive 
 Green Cross Code ≈
 Keep Britain Tidy 
 Don’t Die of Ignorance 
 Eat Five a Day ≈
 Smoking Kills ≈
Even when these are backed up by:
 Compulsion: Laws, Taxes, Police & the Criminal Justice System
 Support: GPs, Free Condoms, Home Visits
 Social Pressure making behaviours taboo
Don’t Change Minds

By the 70s we knew that
men in white coats weren’t
persuading people: so why
not try an odd pop DJ?

Cialdini [Chal-dini]: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Reciprocity - People tend to return a favour. So success of free samples. Also
good cop / bad cop
Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an
idea or goal, they are more likely to honour that commitment. It helps to
resolve cognitive dissonance (should I / shouldn’t I)
Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing, eg
the Asch conformity experiments
Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to
perform objectionable acts, eg the Milgram experiments
Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like, eg the
power of viral marketing and celebrity endorsements
Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers
are available for a "limited time only" encourages sales

Cialdini: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Cialdini suggest that persuasion works the same basically
everywhere, but what works best is weighted differently
among cultures:
 United States, people are best persuaded with RECIPROCATION.
Has this person done me a favour lately?
 Asian countries, people are best persuaded if the requestor has
AUTHORITY and is connected to senior members of their small group?
 Spain/Latin countries, people are best persuaded because of LIKING.
Is this connected to my friends?
 Germany, people are best persuaded if the request is CONSISTENT with
the rules and regulations of the organization.

Persuasion in Action
Commitment and ConsistencyCommitment and Consistency Social ProofSocial Proof ScarcityScarcityLikingLikingAuthorityAuthorityReciprocityReciprocity

Persuasion not in Action
No
Commitment and Consistency
No
Commitment and Consistency
No
Social Proof
No
Social Proof
No
Scarcity
No
Scarcity
No
Reciprocity
No
Reciprocity
Wrong
Liking
Wrong
Liking
Wrong
Authority
Wrong
Authority
Wrong
Jumper
Wrong
Jumper
If you failing to
persuade someone,
badgering is not a
persuasive technique
So please stop it…

HFI PET (Persuasion Emotion Trust)
70 Techniques, such as these 11…
 Optimal Level of Dissonance – “Draw my attention or make me read more
if I present something that seems a bit unusual, but not so unusual that it
looses credibility or turns the consumer off.”
 Feel Good Principle – “If you give me a reason to feel good about a
decision, then I’ll be more likely to make a decision”
 Reason for Request – “If you give a reason for making that decision, I’ll
also be more likely to make a decision”
 Contrast Principle – “One of the most powerful things you can do is help
me see the value of something, but we don’t have an internal value meter
that tells you how much everything is worth, so we always evaluate things
in comparison to other things.”

0
 Visceral Processing – “The way our brains automatically respond to
stimuli, like bright saturated colours and smooth objects.”
 Social Proof – “Assume popular things are things that are worthwhile”
 Social Learning – “We are influenced by others, especially by people like
us or people we respect”
 Scarcity – “If there is much of something left, people must really want it or
it must be really worthwhile.”
 Extrinsic Reward – “Give people something, that can help motivate people
to act”
 Association – “Link a specific image with a specific concept”
 Written Public Statement – “Ask people to put something in writing, they
are much more likely to follow through with that later

1
Optimal Level of Dissonance
Feel Good Principle
Reason for Request
Contrast Principle
Visceral Processing
Social Proof
Social Learning
Scarcity
Extrinsic Reward
Association
Written Public Statement

2
B J Fogg: Persuasion as Simplicity
 The minimally satisfying solution at the lowest cost
(not the most elegant or the ultimate solution)
 Depends on the person
 Depends on the context
 Depends on a person’s resources
 Therefore, simplicity is not a characteristic of the product, it is the
perception of an experience we have of accomplishing the task
Time To some degree these
can be traded off
against each other, but
ultimately, simplicity is
a function of the
scarcest resource at
that moment.
Perceived simplicity is
completing a task with
less resources than
expected (so set
expectations high)
Money
Physical Effort
Thinking Effort
Deviation from Social Norm
Routine

3
B J Fogg: Persuasion as Simplicity
So phone apps have become so simple to
buy, many of us have hundreds of
fascinating applications we don’t actually
need or use
 How did we ever manage before without
applications like Easy Fart
Likewise the Kindle Store or even iTunes

4
MINDSPACE: Public Sector Persuasion
Paul Dolan et.al. synthesised a public sector methodology:
 Messenger: One of us / respected authority
 Incentives: Avoiding loss, Gain, Over-weighting small probabilities
 Norms: Do what others do
 Defaults: Go with the flow
 Salience: What’s new or in it for me
 Priming: Getting in the (unconscious) mood, setting expectations
 Affect: Emotional, not deliberative, responses drive decisions
 Commitments: We try to uphold our public promises
 Ego: We like to act in ways that make us feel better about yourselves

5
MINDSPACE
I don’t have
the space
here to
unpack the
whole
model!

6
Thaler & Sunstein: Choice Architecture (Nudge)
Or time to unpack Richard Thaler & Cass Sunsten’s ...
 iNcentives
 Understand Mappings
 Defaults
 Give Feedback
 Expect Error
 Structure Complex Choices

7
Why Persuasion Doesn’t Always Work
Incongruence: We don’t have to make sense (in the moment)
Example of someone holding conflicting beliefs

8
Hierarchy of Goals: We don’t have to make sense (over time)
Example of divergent goals: The yo-yo diet
Determined to
Lose Weight
Determined to
Lose Weight
Want to
Enjoy Life
Want to
Enjoy Life
Ashamed
of “slipping”
Ashamed
of “slipping”
Get slim for
Special Event
Get slim for
Special Event
Too busy
to Eat Well
Too busy
to Eat Well

9
Low Trust
Poor Usability & Trust damage Persuasion: The engaged user may become
ambivalent and ultimately inactive if the online process is frustrating, anxiety-
provoking, or both.
High Trust
Low Usability High Usability
I am impatient!
I am cautious…I am inactive.
I am engaged.
Concern
decreases
trust
Frustration
decreases
motivation

0
Criticisms of Persuasiveness
 None of the agree
 Too controlling
 Paternalist: Big Brother has your best interests at heart
 Manipulative: a Licence for Snake Oil Merchants
 Is it all just a bit Spivvy?
 Too much psychology and too little practical advice
 Just Bits and Bobs of Psychology bolted together
 Things that have been known for a long time, are “discovered” and
described by “science words” by psychologists (eg, priming)
 Treats people as all the same
 As tested on American college students
 A lot of it is really about good visual design
 And the rest of it is really about good narrative (often through imagery)

1
Criticisms of Persuasiveness
If these 6 (or 70 or 9 or 6) factors are so crucial to persuasion,
how come these have been so successful:
And why are we often blind
to flashy attention grabbing
stuff?
Unless it’s very very …………………..

2
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Petty and Cacioppo [Ca-cho-po]
suggest there are two
ways we make decisions /
get persuaded:
 When we are motivated
and able to pay attention,
we take a logical,
conscious thinking, central
route to decision-making.
This can lead to
permanent change in our
attitude as we adopt and
elaborate upon the
speaker’s arguments.

3
 In other cases, we take
the peripheral route.
Here we do not pay
attention to persuasive
arguments but are
swayed instead by
surface characteristics
such as whether we like
the speaker. In this case
although we do change,
it is only temporary
(although it is to a state
where we may be
susceptible to further
change).

4
So it depends how involved your user is. The right word at the right moment
can be just as good to an involved user. That’s how Google has made a lot of
money out of these:
This has low peripheral cue complexity, and is more
appropriate and effective for highly involved and motivated
individuals – say those visiting Edinburgh
Higher degrees of peripheral cue
complexity pique the attention of
minimally involved individuals and lead to
more elaborate and focused cognitive
processing of the message itself – or flash
stuff gets your attention when you
weren’t bothered

5
Persuasion: How to test it?
For increased engagement and conversion rates:
 Usability Tests focusing on persuasion rather than ease of use – so less on
the shopping basket funnel, and more on what goes on before the “Buy
Now” button
 Expert Evaluation using one of the methods as heuristics
For behavioural change:
 Ethnographic Studies
 Longitudinal Studies
 Contextual Studies
 Interviewing with sensitivity for incongruity and over adaptation, listening
for “try to”, and mixed hierarchy of goals (trying to avoid what people will
think they will do, compared to what they will do)

6
Persuasion: Any defence against it?
No
Not really
Unless it goes too far
Even when we know
its going on, it is hard
to resist...

7
Persuasion: What Supermarkets Do
 Entrance hall and wide aisles at start of shop that funnel down into narrower aisles
to slow down walking pace – this is part of the bounce pattern
 Fresh produce at start of shop to suggest freshness
 Bakery smell vented into shop to stimulate hunger & suggest freshness
 Carefully managed display lighting to suggest freshness
 CCTV at shop entrance to encourage safety & deter shoplifting
 Careful management of product display (eye-line (59” woman, 64” man and best
viewing angle 15° below 0) facing, tumble display, end-cap, price spread (premium,
value, budget), shelf-talkers
 Matched special offers and coupons to promote cross-sells
 Statements about price checking
 Family car parking near door to give extra care to big spenders
 Promote impulse buying (2/3 of your baskets)
 Loss leaders on basics
 Bargain hunters tend to actually spend more
 Changing mood music tempo and volume

8
Thank you
For further information, please contact:
Rob van Tol
User Vision
55 North Castle Street
Edinburgh
EH2 3QA
Tel: 0131 240 1492
Email: rob@uservision.co.uk
Web: www.uservision.co.uk

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