Persuasive Design in User Interface Design

The user experience/ user interface design field is one that has seen a lot of dramatic changes in the last thirty years ever since GUIs became the de facto modus operandi of computing. New terms have cropped up along the way as user interface design evolved. Buzzwords such as information architecture, interaction design, content strategy and experience design have all come to represent better understanding of how to create a better user experience when developing a user interface design of an application or website. As the internet was booming in the mid-90s a lot of user interface design conventions hadn't been set meaning a lot of websites suffered from usability issues. Even today many websites still score poorly on many dimensions of usability. Usability is absolutely crucial to UI design because an unusable website will drive customers away even in spite of having the best content. However, once a user interface design has been deemed usable a little persuasion is needed to turn visitors of a website into customers.

What Approach to User Interface Design Does Persuasive Design Take?

Persuasive design refers to the creation of technology intended to change user attitudes or behaviors through persuasion and not coercion. In essence persuasive design in user interface design is all about psychology. After a user interface design has been deemed to be usable enough and the content strategy has made it useful for users, it is worthwhile to make it desirable. The desirability of a user interface design can be boosted by focusing on the behavioral context a user is in when using a UI design. This includes, among others, the motivation of a user or the ability needed to navigate a UI design and accomplish tasks. In other words persuasive design is more about why users do what they do, whereas interaction design is more about how they do it. There are, however, a few underlying principles to persuasive design.

What are Some of the Underlying Principles of Persuasive Design?

• The motivation and ability of a user determine whether they perform a task or not.
• User behavior is classified as either positive or negative and also in terms of duration.
• Insights taken from the behavioral sciences are used to increase the motivation and/ or ability of a user interacting with a user interface design.
• Triggers, sometimes referred to as Call-to-Actions, are single UI design elements that are added with the intention of increasing motivation and/ or ability of a user.
• Timing is another crucial aspect of persuasive design. The right trigger, after all, can be futile on the wrong part of the user interface design. The key is presenting them at the point where a user's motivation would be a peak, such as a 'buy' button under the pricing section of a user interface design.

What are Some Examples of Persuasive Design in User Interface Design?

Examples of persuasive design in user interface design abound. Services such as DropBox, for example, feature triggers for receiving more free storage by recommending the service to significant others. Gamification is also another persuasive design trend that is very much in vogue in apps such as Foursquare. Nike+ and other health and fitness apps are another great example. Persuasive design is great when used to engender positive behavior yet the flipside of the coin is that persuasive design has been used to encourage user behavior that might be at odds with the user's health, money or happiness.