Persuade! Let’s persuade some users! What do we want them to do? Well, whatever we desire! Okay okay, maybe not, but please continue to read and hopefully you’ll learn some new strategies to keep your users active and returning to your app.
First of all there are probably multiple times you have been persuaded to do something in an app, that you probably didn’t realize you had been persuaded into doing. Yes, it’s true. You probably have been persuaded without your knowledge.
So how can this be? Well, let’s first start defining what persuasion is and then look into some strategies.
B.J. Fogg wrote in 2003 that the term persuasion could be defined as “An attempt to change attitudes or behaviours or both(without using coercion or deception)”. So let’s go with this definition. Btw. B.J. Fogg wrote the book “Persuasive Technology”, which is a must read for any UXer, designer, developer, IT, whatever. For everyone. Buy it and get a better understanding of persuasion in technology, how to use it proper and the ethical problems with using it.
So okay, to persuade is to try changing an attitude or behaviour to something you desire the users to do. The way it happens is through different strategies, that almost all apps uses in some form.
Let’s recite them:
You can reduce whatever steps it takes to do a action. The fewer steps, the more the user actually want to do the action. Who wants to go through 7 steps to buy something from a ecommerce site? Nobody. But with one click, you buy that stuff right up.
2. Tunneling
Visualize and calculate when the user is done with something. Show them that they only need one more step to finish up that payment. This will in courage the users to see that there is light by the end of the tunnel. Imagine you are going through an app onboarding tutorial phase, and you just swipe right and right, but don’t know when you are finished with that onboarding phase. Wouldn’t that be annoying and discouraging? Yes, yes it would.
3. Tailoring
Let me tailor this custom solution just for you! Doesn’t this make you feel special and want to sign up? Yes, yes it does. By making it personal and customized to you — the user, it persuades you more to do it. No reason for empirical proof. You know it’s true.
4. Suggestion
Yep, we all hate this one. When opening a specific — not to be named — social media after looking for that special bomber jacket, you get tons of different bomber jackets suggested to you. Okay okay, suggestions is also very nice. When shopping on that clothing ecommerce site, and looking at a specific item, it’s nice that different other similar items shows up next to it.
5. Self-monitoring
Progress is motivating. When you in that gym are putting on those extra weights on the barbell and hitting a PR, you feel progression and motivation, don’t you? Showing a user of your app, that they are making progress in fx doing tasks like learning to speak spanish, persuades them to come back and do them again and again.
6. Survelliance
When your boss is looking over your shoulder — which we all hate — doesn’t this persuade you to not open that extra tab with Facebook on? You can use a surveillance strategy in app by fx making a community around whatever your app does. For example running and exercises apps uses this strategy, so you kinda feel some commitment for those of your friends that follow you. They look at you, they see you: so if you dont do that exercise, they know. So you betta’ do it.
7. Conditioning
You see this everywhere. You know that scenario when you are told that you did a good job for doing some action in an app? Well, this is what conditioning are. Conditioning are using B.F. Skinners theory about behaviorism: When you are rewarded for doing something, your brain releases dopamine, which makes you feel all excited and happy about yourself, which in turn can be used to persuade you to keep on doing that thing.
These 7 persuasion strategies can be implemented in your tool(your app, website whatever) to persuade a user to do a specific action. There is furthermore multiple persuasive ways to get the user to do something: through communication and design, that also can and should be implemented to proper use these above 7 persuasion strategies. It’s not appealing to show a reward as a red text, since the color red is normally associated with danger.
Why use persuasion? Well, studies shows that only one out of five apps are used more than once (1). Using persuasive strategies can help your users to keep doing a task that is good for them — fx an app about getting them to stop smoking.
Yes, there is a lot of ethically and moral responsibilities using these strategies. Using it in a harming way, to get personal infomations or any other ethically wrong way, we at Tons do not condone and do not want to be part of.
If this post and persuasion sparks something in you, I can recommend following books;
B.J. Fogg, 2003: “Persuasive Technology”
Nodder, C. 2013: “Evil by design”
Werbach, K. Hunter, D. 2012: “For the Win”
McGonigal, J. 2011: “Reality is Broken”
Thanks for reading, and give me that thumbs up. It’s right below this infomation. Oh see, I’m trying to persuade you ;) Now go thumbs it up!