August 9, 2011 at 16:44Psychological manipulation in the development of e-commerce sites
- Transfer
Author: Cristina Bjoran
Source: www.uxbooth.com/blog/psychological-manipulation-in-ecommerce-design
Web designers and web architects use a whole arsenal of psychological traps to manipulate users and provoke them into certain patterns of behavior. What can you learn from these tricks? And, more importantly, are they ethical?
In July 2011, Dan Arieli, a professor of psychology and a specialist in behavioral economics, published an article on the topic of psychological techniques used today by several major websites in one of the issues of the Wired online publication. In this article, entitled “Gamed,” the author demonstrated how sites like Amazon and Groupon stimulate certain behavioral scenarios aimed at making a purchase using design elements.
Note that “stimulate” is just one of the words that can describe this technique. If you look from a different angle, this tactic looks like frank manipulation.
Most recently, I met and talked with Professor Arieli about his book, Predictably Irrational, which explores many cases of seemingly irrational behavior, and how companies learned to profit from it.
When it came to e-commerce sites (in fact, these are shops that benefit from the ease with which customers part with money while shopping), Professor Arieli emphasized that the main idea of these sites is not to teach customers how to accept reasonable decisions, but to provide them with an excuse for their own spending habits. The more a site visitor is satisfied with the purchase, the higher the likelihood of a repeated visit to this site, and, more importantly, a repeated purchase.
It goes without saying that companies have long understood how to make a profit using various human conditions. But since these methods (at least part of them) are now more than ever in the hands of web designers and interface developers, it is worthwhile to linger for a moment and talk about the ethical side of the issue and the responsibility of these people. Since creating user experiences and experiences has now turned into a craft, the line between offering a recommendation and true manipulation is more than ever distinguishable.
Let's look at some of the most striking examples. You have the right to take whatever you want out of this study - you can take it as valuable advice or as a warning.
Default conditions and conflicts
The usability guru Jacob Nielsen once asked the question: “How trusting are Internet users?” And he himself answered: “It is sad, but very trusting.” At the same time, he talked about the "power of the default settings" or how quickly users accept any default settings that make their life easier. And this, obviously, is one of the most important aspects of the user experience.
“Our decision to make a decision can be radically affected by the ability to get around even small conflicts,” Arieli says in his article. Think about it from the height of your own experience in finding something and shopping on the Internet. How likely is it that you will follow the first link in the search results? What about going straight to Amazon in search of a book, even if you can buy it cheaper on eBay or from some other seller?
Here it is, this is the smoothing out of small internal conflicts that has turned Amazon into the giant that it is now. Users are very likely to return to Amazon over and over because of a “1-click purchase” (which is debatable). In fact, for most, shopping on Amazon is easier, since our credit card information is already stored on this site. Indeed, Amazon has become one of the (if not the only) default online stores.
Let's take a closer look at the Amazon checkout page.
As Professor Arieli accurately noted in his article, one of the initial barriers for a visitor who makes an electronic purchase for the first time was the idea of transportation costs (and despite the fact that by this moment most of us had already bought something on the Internet). Amazon is well aware of this small conflict and therefore solves this problem in a very original way.
Look at the illustration carefully. You see how Amazon conveniently attached the shopping basket to the choice of delivery method, while encouraging visitors not only to spend more than $ 25 to get the right to free shipping (section “Super-economical delivery”), but also to become a member of the Amazon Prime program. If there are those among you who still don’t know what Prime is, I’ll explain: the buyer is required to pay an annual fee of $ 79 in order to receive the right to free delivery of almost any purchase within 2 days.
How generous is this Amazon, right? However, given that these methods inspire buyers to spend at least $ 25 on one purchase (I recently fell for this bait, and this screenshot confirms this), it becomes clear that we are being manipulated again, influencing our need to try to save - even if you need to spend more money for this. Of course, the main feeling is pleasant - more books, equipment, clothes and everything that you ordered. But in reality, this is a trap that forces us to spend more in order to avoid approaching the “psychological barrier” in the form of transportation costs. In addition, we think that we did very smart by paying more.
In other words, the goal of sellers is to make customers feel smarter, even if they make less than smart decisions. And the more intelligent customers feel, the better.
Impulsive shopping
Online store owners are by no means stupid people. They are well aware that once an internal conflict has been resolved, it is much easier for customers to make impulsive purchases. However, impulsive purchases can lead to a buyer's guilt and, even worse (oh, horror!), To return the purchase.
Smart sellers have long figured this out. By smart sellers, I mean specifically Apple.
Just think: you went for a walk in the city, wander aimlessly at your favorite shops and stare at the windows. And here you see a great watch. You can even afford them, but you have no great need for them, and you can do without them. Go on, you tell yourself. But where there ... the watch cries out to you so distinctly that you happily go into the store and buy it. You can regret it right away, or perhaps only when you get home. But the main thing is that our fault for an impulsive purchase is something that companies like Apple know very well.
If you recently bought something on the iTunes or App Store, you probably noticed that your receipt does not immediately appear in the inbox. Sometimes even a couple of days pass before it appears. When the receipt finally arrives, the buyer may not immediately see it - the main thing is that the painful moment of parting with the money has already passed. The guilt for making a spontaneous purchase also faded, and the emotional outburst that accompanies an impulsive purchase is no longer so acute.
This is the main point in understanding the buyer's response: it is believed that when you see the consequences of a purchase, it will negatively affect the performance of subsequent impulsive purchases. In an electronic environment, the response is easier to control. The intangible goods that we buy on iTunes or the App Store are completely different from those watches whose purchase we were so confused already at the exit from the store. A real watch is like a ritual bonfire in which your money burned.
The moral is this: if a negative emotional reaction cannot be avoided, then the best thing a seller can do is to postpone such a reaction as much as possible. This is a tricky move, but also a bit insidious.
Convince them that it is important
When the likelihood of impulsive purchases is low, it is just necessary to make visitors not just feel the need to make a purchase, but to understand that they need to do this as soon as possible.
Groupon has brought this technique to near perfection. Well, of course, they successfully got rid of the old-fashioned raid, which was associated with collecting coupons, and copywriters did their best by writing a text that aroused the enthusiasm of users. But this is not the main focus. In the arsenal of this resource is the ever-relevant countdown factor and the pressure of the environment in a hidden form.
As you can see in this screenshot, buying Indian dishes with a 50 percent discount is already becoming a kind of game: besides you, there are many more “players” and there are ticking clocks. It’s even something like throwing the puck in hockey: like Amazon, Groupon shows visitors how much money they can save (even if the potential buyer does not need this product). The seller makes the visitor act quickly and respond in real time. Add to this another syndrome called "everyone does it."
The swiftness and charm with which Groupon forces its visitors to act in the way they need is simply super-efficient (the incredible success of this project is proof of this). Nevertheless, like most of the methods described here, he undoubtedly uses the manipulation technique.
Discussion
As already mentioned, psychological manipulation in business is as old as commerce itself. However, we are interested in the following: since a large share of commerce has shifted to the Internet and personal interaction in payments for goods is slowly but surely losing its significance, does the art of extorting money from customers lose their last ethical principles? To be more specific, what do experts in the field of user interaction think about such manipulation and approach to website design?
Source: www.uxbooth.com/blog/psychological-manipulation-in-ecommerce-design
Web designers and web architects use a whole arsenal of psychological traps to manipulate users and provoke them into certain patterns of behavior. What can you learn from these tricks? And, more importantly, are they ethical?In July 2011, Dan Arieli, a professor of psychology and a specialist in behavioral economics, published an article on the topic of psychological techniques used today by several major websites in one of the issues of the Wired online publication. In this article, entitled “Gamed,” the author demonstrated how sites like Amazon and Groupon stimulate certain behavioral scenarios aimed at making a purchase using design elements.
Note that “stimulate” is just one of the words that can describe this technique. If you look from a different angle, this tactic looks like frank manipulation.
Most recently, I met and talked with Professor Arieli about his book, Predictably Irrational, which explores many cases of seemingly irrational behavior, and how companies learned to profit from it.
When it came to e-commerce sites (in fact, these are shops that benefit from the ease with which customers part with money while shopping), Professor Arieli emphasized that the main idea of these sites is not to teach customers how to accept reasonable decisions, but to provide them with an excuse for their own spending habits. The more a site visitor is satisfied with the purchase, the higher the likelihood of a repeated visit to this site, and, more importantly, a repeated purchase.
It goes without saying that companies have long understood how to make a profit using various human conditions. But since these methods (at least part of them) are now more than ever in the hands of web designers and interface developers, it is worthwhile to linger for a moment and talk about the ethical side of the issue and the responsibility of these people. Since creating user experiences and experiences has now turned into a craft, the line between offering a recommendation and true manipulation is more than ever distinguishable.
Let's look at some of the most striking examples. You have the right to take whatever you want out of this study - you can take it as valuable advice or as a warning.
Default conditions and conflicts
The usability guru Jacob Nielsen once asked the question: “How trusting are Internet users?” And he himself answered: “It is sad, but very trusting.” At the same time, he talked about the "power of the default settings" or how quickly users accept any default settings that make their life easier. And this, obviously, is one of the most important aspects of the user experience.
“Our decision to make a decision can be radically affected by the ability to get around even small conflicts,” Arieli says in his article. Think about it from the height of your own experience in finding something and shopping on the Internet. How likely is it that you will follow the first link in the search results? What about going straight to Amazon in search of a book, even if you can buy it cheaper on eBay or from some other seller?
Here it is, this is the smoothing out of small internal conflicts that has turned Amazon into the giant that it is now. Users are very likely to return to Amazon over and over because of a “1-click purchase” (which is debatable). In fact, for most, shopping on Amazon is easier, since our credit card information is already stored on this site. Indeed, Amazon has become one of the (if not the only) default online stores.
Let's take a closer look at the Amazon checkout page.
As Professor Arieli accurately noted in his article, one of the initial barriers for a visitor who makes an electronic purchase for the first time was the idea of transportation costs (and despite the fact that by this moment most of us had already bought something on the Internet). Amazon is well aware of this small conflict and therefore solves this problem in a very original way.
Look at the illustration carefully. You see how Amazon conveniently attached the shopping basket to the choice of delivery method, while encouraging visitors not only to spend more than $ 25 to get the right to free shipping (section “Super-economical delivery”), but also to become a member of the Amazon Prime program. If there are those among you who still don’t know what Prime is, I’ll explain: the buyer is required to pay an annual fee of $ 79 in order to receive the right to free delivery of almost any purchase within 2 days.
How generous is this Amazon, right? However, given that these methods inspire buyers to spend at least $ 25 on one purchase (I recently fell for this bait, and this screenshot confirms this), it becomes clear that we are being manipulated again, influencing our need to try to save - even if you need to spend more money for this. Of course, the main feeling is pleasant - more books, equipment, clothes and everything that you ordered. But in reality, this is a trap that forces us to spend more in order to avoid approaching the “psychological barrier” in the form of transportation costs. In addition, we think that we did very smart by paying more.
In other words, the goal of sellers is to make customers feel smarter, even if they make less than smart decisions. And the more intelligent customers feel, the better.
Impulsive shopping
Online store owners are by no means stupid people. They are well aware that once an internal conflict has been resolved, it is much easier for customers to make impulsive purchases. However, impulsive purchases can lead to a buyer's guilt and, even worse (oh, horror!), To return the purchase.
Smart sellers have long figured this out. By smart sellers, I mean specifically Apple.
Just think: you went for a walk in the city, wander aimlessly at your favorite shops and stare at the windows. And here you see a great watch. You can even afford them, but you have no great need for them, and you can do without them. Go on, you tell yourself. But where there ... the watch cries out to you so distinctly that you happily go into the store and buy it. You can regret it right away, or perhaps only when you get home. But the main thing is that our fault for an impulsive purchase is something that companies like Apple know very well.
If you recently bought something on the iTunes or App Store, you probably noticed that your receipt does not immediately appear in the inbox. Sometimes even a couple of days pass before it appears. When the receipt finally arrives, the buyer may not immediately see it - the main thing is that the painful moment of parting with the money has already passed. The guilt for making a spontaneous purchase also faded, and the emotional outburst that accompanies an impulsive purchase is no longer so acute.
This is the main point in understanding the buyer's response: it is believed that when you see the consequences of a purchase, it will negatively affect the performance of subsequent impulsive purchases. In an electronic environment, the response is easier to control. The intangible goods that we buy on iTunes or the App Store are completely different from those watches whose purchase we were so confused already at the exit from the store. A real watch is like a ritual bonfire in which your money burned.
The moral is this: if a negative emotional reaction cannot be avoided, then the best thing a seller can do is to postpone such a reaction as much as possible. This is a tricky move, but also a bit insidious.
Convince them that it is important
When the likelihood of impulsive purchases is low, it is just necessary to make visitors not just feel the need to make a purchase, but to understand that they need to do this as soon as possible.
Groupon has brought this technique to near perfection. Well, of course, they successfully got rid of the old-fashioned raid, which was associated with collecting coupons, and copywriters did their best by writing a text that aroused the enthusiasm of users. But this is not the main focus. In the arsenal of this resource is the ever-relevant countdown factor and the pressure of the environment in a hidden form.
As you can see in this screenshot, buying Indian dishes with a 50 percent discount is already becoming a kind of game: besides you, there are many more “players” and there are ticking clocks. It’s even something like throwing the puck in hockey: like Amazon, Groupon shows visitors how much money they can save (even if the potential buyer does not need this product). The seller makes the visitor act quickly and respond in real time. Add to this another syndrome called "everyone does it."
The swiftness and charm with which Groupon forces its visitors to act in the way they need is simply super-efficient (the incredible success of this project is proof of this). Nevertheless, like most of the methods described here, he undoubtedly uses the manipulation technique.
Discussion
As already mentioned, psychological manipulation in business is as old as commerce itself. However, we are interested in the following: since a large share of commerce has shifted to the Internet and personal interaction in payments for goods is slowly but surely losing its significance, does the art of extorting money from customers lose their last ethical principles? To be more specific, what do experts in the field of user interaction think about such manipulation and approach to website design?