Evil by Design

Interaction design to lead us into temptation

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  • Pride
    • Provide reasons
    • Repeat positive messages
    • Personal messages hit home
    • Gain public commitment
    • Emphasize general similarities
    • Certification and endorsement
    • Complete a set
    • Desire for order
  • Sloth
    • Path of least resistance
    • Provide fewer options
    • Pre-pick your preferred option
    • Make options hard to find or understand
    • Negative options (don’t not sign up)
  • Gluttony
    • Work for a reward
    • Small reward
    • Hide the math
    • Show the problems
    • Foot in the door
    • Door in the face
    • Decisions after investment
    • Tom Sawyer effect
    • Prevent cancellations with doubt
    • Impatience leads to compliance
  • Anger
    • Humor stops anger
    • Slippery slope
    • Metaphysical arguments
    • Give people permission
    • Anonymity
    • Scare people
  • Envy
    • Manufacture desirability
    • Create something aspirational
    • Ownership before purchase
    • Status differences
    • Achievement as status
    • Payment instead of achievement
    • Advertise status
    • People should feel important
  • Lust
    • Say “I love you”
    • Be the second best
    • Message as a question
    • In-group
    • Give to get
    • Make something free
    • Intangible value
    • Make a request
  • Greed
    • Partial reinforcement
    • Make it into a game
    • Don’t finish, win
    • Inflate feelings of mastery
    • Skill, not luck
    • Walled garden
    • Own the anchor
    • Move from money to tokens
    • Encourage breakage
    • Make it expensive
    • Second-best first
    • Break coherence
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Bibliography

Recommended reading on persuasion, persuasive design and use of emotion to convince people to act.

Books:

Stephen Anderson Seductive Interaction Design
Dan Ariely Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
Robert Cialdini Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, and Pre-suasion
BJ Fogg Persuasive Technology and Mobile Persuasion
Jeff Johnson Designing with the Mind in Mind
Richard Thaler Nudge
Don Norman Emotional Design, The Design of Everyday Things, and Things That Make Us Smart
Herb Sorensen Inside the Mind of the Shopper: The Science of Retailing
Paco Underhill Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
Susan Weinschenk How to Get People to Do Stuff, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, and Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?

 

Blogs:

Dan Lockton’s Design With Intent

Harry Brignull’s Dark Patterns

Stephen Anderson’s Mental Notes

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Recent Posts

  • Persuasive techniques at the SXSW trade show
  • Visual description of Evil By Design sxsw talk
  • Nice write-up of Evil By Design sxsw talk on Entrepeneur.com

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Copyright © 2008-2012 Chris Nodder