January 30, 2009
HaveASec? Collect Mobile Feedback with Stanford iPhone App
The Stanford iPhone class released some great apps and finally got a little love from TechCrunch. One app I have been using frequently is HaveASec.
Developed by Nafis Jamal, Paul Wilson and Andrew He, HaveASec is perfect for collecting mobile surveys and polls even if your participants don't have an iPhone. Unfortunately, we are inundated with spam and it's often difficult to collect useful feedback with traditional tools like SurveyMonkey. One persuasive technique that's been effective for me is sending a short URL via text message. The personal nature of the phone and mobile optimized interface makes it easy to rapidly collect data with HaveASec.
As a researcher interested in contextual sensing, HaveASec is also useful for catching people in action. If you're an app developer you can embed a survey directly within your application and get the rich comments you can't possibly infer from just clickstream metrics. I can also see how health organizations or even restaurants can ask a few non-obtrusive questions to improve their service. I am much more likely to respond to a survey while I'm waiting in line than fill out some piece of paper weeks later. Try making a survey online or directly from your iPhone and let us know what you think in the comments below.
Go directly to HaveAsec in the iTunes App Store here or check out their web page where you can create a survey now.
Posted by Enrique at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 14, 2008
Obama Facebook Page Reaches Historic Activity Levels
Barack Obama's Facebook Page has unprecedented activity for a leader and will continue to serve as a growing social media monument. Just think about it for a second... will your actions online persist alongside Obama for generations to come? When else in history have you seen millions of people from across the world contribute themselves to a digital movement? If you have comparable examples, please comment!
As of today, the actions of 3,134,949 real people on Obama's Facebook Page are echoed by:
-578,708 Wall Posts
-1,670 Notes (1000+ Comments)
-41 Videos (700+ Comments)
-21 Posted Items (100+ Comments)
-15 Photo Albums (500+ Photos)
Whether people stay active and continue building momentum is up to you. Stay tuned for more examples of Obama's Mass Interpersonal Persuasion (MIP) strategies.
Other interesting Obama social media stats:
-19, 687,519 YouTube Channel Views
-1,500,00+ MyBarackObama Active Users (35,000+ local organizing groups, 200,000+ events)
-927,156 MySpace Friends (147,621 Comments)
-130,522 Twitter Followers (263 Updates)
-1,502 Flickr Photo Sets
*Potential double counting
Posted by Enrique at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2008
Donate Your Status Message for Votes and Psuedo-Community
How would you respond to a handwritten or mass mailed letter asking you to vote in 2004? At least initially, you might assume the handwritten letter was more sincere and open it because it was not simply sent through computer spam. The handwritten message might persuade you to vote, however, it's impact would be limited unless you were inspired to handwrite letters to other people too. Fast forward to election 2008 and ask yourself how you responded to a Facebook Status Message Update (SMU) from friends asking you to vote?
Your response is influenced by the perception of interpersonal (direct, personal, and sincere) and mass (indirect, selfishly motivated and not likely sincere) communication on Facebook. You may view a SMU from a friend as sincere and feel inspired to show solidarity by also donating your status to the application Causes shown above. In doing so, you have enabled Causes to massively distribute your call to action to other friends on Facebook, thus creating a pseudo-community around the election rally. According to Beniger (1987), "there is a long history of efforts to personalize mass media communication by disguising the size of intended audiences, targeting messages and contriving intimacy. These superficial interpersonal relations cause us to confuse personal with mass messages. The capacity for this pseudo community is limited by technology’s ability to confuse us. " This begs the question, did Causes confuse you by showing that millions of people have donated their status, including a number of your friends? I don't think nearly 2 million people were confused by the actions of their friends. I interpreted the simple SMUs from my friends as sincere, reassuring my own beliefs and triggering me to be apart of something bigger than myself. I'm hopeful that we can replicate this type of Mass Interpersonal Persuasion (MIP) for more causes in sustainable ways.
*Important to note that the cost of sharing a personal Status Message Update (SMU) is close to $0 versus sending a handwritten letter.
*Also interesting to note that about 10% of the total user base on Facebook participated in the Causes election rally
Posted by Enrique at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2008
Texting Your Way to Love
WARNING PG-13: Possibly inappropriate for young viewers
Pay attention to the following steps and watch how to text your way to love:
1. The first text
2. Flirxting
3. Drunk Texting
4. The phone call
5. 80's party
6. The text message breakup
Posted by Enrique at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2008
Lifestreaming diet challenge
Loic Le Meur (Founder, Seesmic) showed an interesting example of a video conversation thread challenging people to improve their diet and lose weight at the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB) event last night.
Do you think that video lifestreaming can improve your health? Let us know what you think in the comments. For more information on the importance of online video check out the recent conference we hosted at Stanford.
--Enrique
Posted by Enrique at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2008
How does Facebook motivate you to update your status?
Facebook uses a number of persuasive strategies to make you update your status with a new message. If your status message becomes stale after a week or you manually clear it, a security alarm goes off telling Facebook engineers to act quickly and convince you to update (surveillance).
Thinking of a new SMU can be difficult, so Facebook automatically places the question, “What are you doing right now?” prominently for you to see. Having a specific question to answer makes it easier to comply (tunneling). People have high ability when it comes to changing their status- it's a simple call to action. Facebook wants you to type anything in the little box even if it only makes sense to you. SMU on Facebook is like being on a stage but you can't always tell who watching.
Unless you subscribe to status updates on your phone like on Twitter or actively micro-blog, the chances of someone explicitly encouraging you to update is low. Therefore Facebook must use scheduled reinforcement to remind users to update their status regularly or face the punishment of a looming question (conditioning).
By asking what users are doing next to updates from friends, Facebook also encourages users to internalize their actions in relation to others. Facebook recommends SMUs from certain friends based on previous interaction (tailoring). The SMU algorithm senses interaction like chating or common group membership with someone and tries to display the most relevant SMUs. When you befriend a person you are telling Facebook that you are interested in this person right now. Facebook sees this as an opportunity to create an interaction point and displays your new friend’s SMU. The process of Facebook monitoring you is persuasive because people are more likely to change their status if they know Facebook is paying attention and friends they care about are doing it too. When users fail to disclose new information, Facebook increases motivation by using a combination of surveillance, tunneling (info), conditioning, and tailoring strategies.
What motivates you to update?
Posted by Enrique at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008
Persuasion through Status Message Update "SMU" on Facebook
Building on a recent presentation to the Psychology of Facebook Course at Stanford University and a previous post, it's time to addresses SMU persuasion at the platform level.
Behind the scenes, how is Facebook slowly persuading people to use SMU?
Lets start with reviewing the Facebook SMU calls to action:
-Asking users "What are you doing right now?" by automatically changing blank SMUs and placing the call to action prominently on the profile page of users (Strong)
* Similar to the hallmark persuasive tactic of putting a large ??question mark?? on blank profile images, users either ignore the question or answer it. The strength of social proof and impression management triggers increase when all your friends are answering the question but you aren't.
-View Status Stories (Weak)
* Just ask yourself how often you have viewed SMU stories. I would like to see Facebook analytics on this.
-Subscribe to status messages via RSS and SMS (Weak)
* Just ask yourself how many people you subscribe to directly from Facebook. Unlike Twitter and other platforms built around SMU, Facebook does not have a culture of "following" people.
Other interesting persuasive strategies:
-Displaying SMU during chat sessions
* By increasing the amount of times a user views their own SMU, the probability that they will change their SMU increases. Unless you really want to see the same SMU for a long time, you are likely to erase or change it after it becomes stale.
-Mobile interface news feed algorithm places more emphasis on SMU browsing in Home and Friends tabs
* When you are on your phone, SMU can be more useful especially when users disclose location and potential interaction points, like the intention to go...
-Automatically sensing status
*By far the most interesting aspect of SMU that I will explore more in my paper. How do you feel about Facebook sensing your status?
Where should Facebook go with SMU?
Currently Facebook SMU functionality includes:
1. Unlimited SMUs of 68 characters each
2. SMU with HTML links
3. SMU time stamp of minutes, hours, days, week, month
4. Personal SMU "stories" of 50+ days
5. Selective SMU viewing and subscription
6. Distribution of Status Message Updates
a. Profile Page Mini-Feed
b. Home Side-Bar
c. RSS and SMS
d. Chat
e. Friends Page
SMU can have multiple purposes ranging from perceptive presence to microblogging, but essentially it's all about managing and acquiring ATTENTION .
On Facebook many SMUs fall into the following categories:
-Materials: "lost money in a lottery half way around the world!!"; "is drinking a fine glass of Floral Springs Cab."
-Emotion: "is trying to relax."
-Health: "is about to start exercising... day went by quick!"
-Location: "is vegas"
-Recommendations: "eating organic stuff...you should too! :-) (And go hug a tree while you're at it)."
-Relationships: "just had the best talk with her dad :)"
-Tasks: "furiously preparing for Web 2.0 Expo SF!"
-Marketing: "says to check out http://getbackboard.com."
-Any other categories we are missing? Please comment
We cannot engage with SMUs posted by other users through commenting/sharing/rating and it's unclear where the conversation goes after someone reads an interesting SMU. People can react to SMUs through all the channels on Facebook (wall, poke, message, apps, etc) but Facebook isn't tracking this explicitly. Apparently, Facebook doesn't even care about your SMUs after a few weeks and deletes them, further decreasing the incentive to update frequently. In addition, we can only express ourselves through text based SMU instead of emoticons or anything else that can fit in the SMU box. Rather than push the limits of SMU, Facebook will wait to glean best practices from other companies and apps in the space.
Context will continue to be the most important persuasive element for platform developers as users express variations of the same content (text, images, video) through SMU. How can you design SMU features to harvest the most valuable content at the right time. More importantly how do you value some SMUs over others in aggregate?
Posted by Enrique at 12:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 16, 2008
Attention through Status Message Update (SMU)
Through the Psychology of Facebook and Data Mining and Electronic Business classes at Stanford, I propose the term:
Status Message Update (SMU).
SMU is a unit and mechanism of asynchronous light weight communication distributed to an audience. SMU can be a currency and service, similar to SMS.
Communicating "status" is essential to our most valuable source of capital- attention. We are experiencing a temporary attention micro-economy right at this moment if you are reading this. However, attention does not come in precise, indistinguishable units. SMU is a metric emerging from social media that can potentially help us better understand attention.
How to persuade attention through the Facebook SMU?
Getting attention is more than a momentary thing because you build on a SMU stock. For example, if I post a SMU to "BUY THIS VACUUM CLEANER!" every five minutes, my network of friends would change their privacy settings and think some combination of the following:
a. I'm wasting a 100k at Stanford
b. I have OCD
c. Some advertiser is paying something worth more than my soul
However, if your SMU is new, real, original, or provocative then you might start acquiring subscriptions exponentially through Facebook's various viral channels. Thus, obtaining attention through SMU is obtaining a kind of enduring wealth, a form of wealth that puts you in the VIP seat to get anything the attention economy offers.
"Contrary to what you are sometimes urged to believe, money cannot reliably buy attention."
-Michael H. Goldhaber
Stay tuned for the next addition of Kairos through Status Message Update (SMU). Please feel free to contact me and shred this post to pieces!
Thank you for your attention,
Enrique Allen
Mark reviews services like ping.fm, hellotxt, MoodBlast, and Socialthing that hopefully facilitate valuable SMU for you.
Facebook, if I get your attention, I would greatly appreciate analyzing your status data and comparing it with Super Status lol!
Posted by Enrique at 04:09 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2008
Mobile People Discovery
iFob acts as a beacon, saying “I am here!” and automatically exchanges “micro profiles” with other other iFob users in the area. You can maintain privacy with this mobile application by simply listening for other iFob pings and reaching out when you choose. This is a converging step towards discovery, status updates and serendipity with existing applications like twitter and dodgeball.
--Enrique Allen
Posted by Enrique at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2008
Mass Communication Subversion
While ad revenue continues to drive many web 2.0 companies, Subvert and Profit is not the first attempt to employ "crowd hacking" techniques to let people pay to get their content on Digg, Stumble Upon and more recently YouTube. Without trying to spin their business into something socially acceptable, advertisers pay 9,000 users internationally to pollute big social sites and get traffic. The rate for Diggs and Stumbles runs at $2 a vote and users receive $1 for their contribution. You can also earn 20% of the earnings of any friends you refer, and 10% of the cost of advertisements from any advertisers you refer. The service is shrouded in promises of secrecy for their clients and difficult to measure how it actually contributes to the success of content. Despite all the ethical questions, envision a similar model for subversion that may increase positive net benefit for our society like creating incentives for citizens to participate in our democratic process.
Posted by Enrique at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2007
Ad-Supported Calling Plan
Pudding Media is building a platform that opens new advertising real estate, allowing consumers to immediately receive and respond to offers related to topics they are discussing. At the same time, Pudding Media's technology allows any communications provider from mobile carriers to Web publishers to offer new ad-supported calling plans. How users respond will prove where the value resides.
Posted by Enrique at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2007
Distributed Work Online
From engineering to design, a significant amount of time working on collaborative or off-shore projects is spent reviewing iterations and trading comments. A free central desktop where collaborators can view real time information and communicate easily over VOIP is needed to engage work online. Recent startups jumpchart and MyQuire are making strides.
Posted by Enrique at 02:05 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2007
Embodied agents in China's online panopticon
The AP reports that China's existing surveillance and restriction of Chinese Internet use will be augmented by persuasive (and frighteningly cute) embodied agents designed to remind surfers of the potential of being constantly watched.
The animated police appeared designed to startle Web surfers and remind them that authorities closely monitor Web activity. However, the statement did not say whether there were plans to boost monitoring further.
It is worrisome, but expected, to see the idea of a panopticon -- a prison in which inmates each might be under surveillance at any moment -- continue to be applied in interactive technology designed for controlling citizens.
Bentham's panopticon
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault uses the panopticon as an important element of his genealogy of Western penal systems. At the second Persuasive Technology conference this April, Julie Leth Jespersen, Peter Ohrstrom, Anders Albrechtslund, Jorgen Albretsen, and Per Hasle from Aalborg University presented a paper which addressed the concept of a panopticon in interactive technology.
-- Dean Eckles
Posted by Dean Eckles at 10:46 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2007
Learning, Design and Technology Expo
At the Learning, Design, and Technology Expo, Stanford graduate students in the school of Learning, Design and Technology displayed their master's projects, showing off their hard work and creativity throughout the program. At the expo, there was a plethora of rich, cutting edge examples of captology put to use. Many of the projects included a simulated reality, often in the form of a game, that was designed to change a persons behavior. For example, the project by Vic Vuchic and Greg Warman entitled "Financial Smackdown" consists of an online and mobile phone-based virtual reality where the user is assigned a character to lead around this virtual reality. The user takes responsibility for the character's financial well-being, allowing him to buy practical things and preventing him from over-indulging. Through the example and practice with this character, the user learns good financial habits and awareness. This program will hopefully help to fight off the financial crisis that is "looming" in America as a result of unhealthy financial strategies. This again was only one of the many great examples of captology put to use at the expo. Other examples ranged from inspiring better recycling strategies to helping teachers be more effective with long division. In fact, the Persuasive Technology Lab's very own Rolf Steier had a fascinating exhibit on his project entitled "Discovery Pathways: Developing Science Thinking in Children by Mapping Connections in Museum Spaces." The expo was held at the Wallenberg Hall at Stanford University. More inforation can be found here: http://events.stanford.edu/events/116/11662/.
--Dana Sittler
Posted by Dana Sittler at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2007
Will you bank with your cell phone?
Although the number of people signed up for mobile banking is small at the moment, more large financial institutions are getting ready to introduce it, and the industry expects wide customer adoption of the service over the next five years. Newsday reports that mobile banking "is one of those things the whole industry is studying," because of the need for real-time information and convenience for consumers. Depending on the bank, consumers now have the option of either "Web-based" banking, downloading a software application or communicating directly with the bank via text messages. As new generations become comfortable with this method, mobile banking may become as ubiquitous as debit cards.
Posted by Enrique at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2007
7 Categories of Mobile Texting for Health
Last week our lab members looked at how texting on mobile phones can be used to promote health. As it turns out, we decided that all the examples we found fit into seven categories.
1. Remind you to do health behavior
2. Collect data from you
3. Offer you words of inspiration
4. Keep you on schedule/routine
5. Alert you to health issue or crisis
6. Send you lab results
7. Give you health info on demand
Our next step is exploring texting for health in other countries and languages. If you know of some examples that don't fit into the categories above, let us know.
Posted by BJ Fogg at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Stare Into the Light
Toyota is doing its part for global warming by including an Eco Drive Indicator - a light in the dashboard - that activates when the car is being driven in a fuel-efficient manner. This is an excellent use of feedback to effect positive change.
So far, the Eco Drive Indicator is only available on vehicles sold in Japan.
Link to Toyota's Press Release [http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/06/0929.html]
Posted by at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2006
"MetroNerd" - a mobile phone app to make nerds cooler
Can a mobile phone application motivate people to be less geeky? Three Finnish students think so. They outlined the concept during a course I taught on mobile persuasion at the University of Oulu.
motivates... 
In eleven slides engineering students Teppo Raisanen, Saana Orjala, and Samuli Ruti describe how MetroNerd can help the "typical male nerd" to "be more popular with the ladies." Specifically, MetroNerd is a mobile quiz game intended to improve the appearance, behavior, and sex appeal of nerds (sign me up!). In theory, the app would motivate users with a vision of greater social acceptance [see storyboard]. As people play the game, they rehearse behaviors and receive instant rewards for hip choices.
The MetroNerd design trio won an award. To motivate the (often shy) Finnish students to take risks, I offered the class a prize for the wackiest project. After the presentations were done and the student votes were counted, MetroNerd came out on top. Their award for wackiness? Three big Snickers bars.
-- BJ Fogg
Posted by BJ Fogg at 08:27 AM | Comments (1)
March 31, 2006
Creative Commons
The University of Washington and Syracuse University have launched a Credibility Commons project to offer scholars and consumers tools to assess and evaluate credibility of information on the World Wide Web.
At this stage, it appears that the project will take the form of an evolving virtual set of search and rating tools, with discussion forums.
Posted by at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
Using LBS to change fitness behavior and attitudes
BiM Active is a mobile service, now offered on Sprint, that uses GPS and persuasion to help people reach fitness goals. The presenter in this demo talks about how location information can provide an automated way to bring user data into a service. He also says the service "is about community--communities share". It will be interesting to see what happens with this new service.
Also see: http://bonesinmotion.com/corp/products.html
Posted by Dean Eckles at 01:14 AM
January 16, 2006
A small phrase reduces flame postings
I had coffee with Kevin Hale of ParticleTree today. He has an active discussion forum where lots of people come to debate recent articles on his site.
Kevin told me that he's had a problem with flamers, who come to the site and start posting angry comments about other people. They get out of hand very quickly.
Here was his answer:
He pre-filled the comment box with the simple phrase "Everybody needs a hug." Turns out that this small step reduced flame postings by a huge number.
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2005
participate in the reputation marketplace
John Windsor, in the BrandShift blog on Corante, recommends to companies that they think carefully about managing their reputations, and suggests several steps to take - from understanding through shaping to letting go.
I've been thinking a lot about the power of reputation and the potential it has to have a disruptive effect on marketing. The fluid reputation marketplaces, like ebay and Amazon, have certainly challenged the power of branding.
Because reputation can play such an important role in the way people relate to brands and companies, it's important to think about how to make sure you stay engaged in managing your reputation in this bottom-up economy.
Posted by at 01:58 PM
September 09, 2005
Now students can bore a hole through the entire planet
A National Geographic study concluded that 11% of Americans 18-24 can't find the US on an unmarked map. 70% can't find New Jersey. However, with the advent of new technology, there may be a way to make geography more interesting: have students bore a hole through the entire planet to see where they end up.
"Are you concerned about where you go to arrive if you dig a very deep straight infinitous hole on Earth?" asks Brazilian grad student Luis Felipe Cipriani. Yes? Well, luckily he has taken the time to manipulate Google Maps in order to answer this age-old question:
http://grad.icmc.usp.br/~cipriani/bighole.php?lang=en
Simply click a point on the map, select "Dig Here" in the balloon that pops up next to your selection and voila!
One finds, for instance, that if we at the Persuasive Tech Lab were to "dig a very deep straight infinitous hole," we'd end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Interestingly, if you were to dig a similar hole in Washington, D.C. you'd also end up in the Indian Ocean.
While it may seem like a silly time-killer to some, it highlights how creative tinkering with new technologies can result in some amazing, and potentially useful educational applications.
Posted by Matt Markovich at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2005
Is removal of barriers a persuasion strategy?
You might find this interesting. Here's an email exchange I had a couple of days ago:
BJ, check this out:"Wouldn't it be great if you could just show up to the laundromat with your bag of dirty, filthy laundry...and throw the whole thing in, lock stock and barrel? Well with WashingSacks you can-they're laundry bags infused with detergent that also dissolve in water."
BJ's response:
Yes, in the chapter on tools I talk about reduction strategy - a different name for removing barriers.BJ
What kinds of barriers could you remove to increase persuasion?
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
Jerk-O-Meter: Empathy Crutch or Empathy Trainer?
Do you ever wish you knew how annoyed you sound when you speak or whether you're really interested in what someone else is saying? For those of us who have no social skills or the ability to gauge how others interpret the verbal and non-verbal cues we toss out during standard social interactions now there's the "Jerk-O-Meter".
MIT researchers conducted a study entitled "Voices of Attraction", which examined the conversations of people involved in speed-dating sessions. They found they could realiably gauge a subject's interest level by the tone of their voice. Enter another MIT researcher with a VoIP phone, add a complex algorithm and you have a phone that anaylzes your voice to determine your emotional state. So far, it has the capability to warn others that you're pre-occupied or tell you if it senses you're becoming too angry.
Commercial applications are already in the offing including a "wearable 'social signaling meter'" (mood rings of the new millenium?) or more sophisticated applications which would allow advertisers to more accurately gauge the effectivness of their pitches.
My question is, if you messed around a bit with it could you use it to train people to believe they were interested in something when they weren't? Could you use it to manipulate someone's interest or anger levels by intentionally giving alerting them to the wrong cues? Does it seem somewhat odd that we're developing elaborate systems to tell ourselves (and outside parties) how we "really" feel?
To read more, check out:
Software helps you stop being a jerk
Posted by Matt Markovich at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
What do Quail and Domain Name Registrars have in Common?
During a recent run, I came upon a covey of California quail. The male with his brilliant plumage and impressive crest feathers started strutting up the path cooing all the way.
I could not help but watch his performance even though I knew its purpose. The male quail was intentionally leading me astray while the female quietly herded the chicks into the tall grass, out of harms way.
The quail used a crude but effective form of persuasion called sidetracking. Sidetracking is a derivation of tunneling which is described in detail in BJ's book, Persuasive Technology.
Domain name registrars also employ sidetracking. Just like a quail, a demain name registar uses bright colors and bold statements to distract its users. They hope the user will miss the dull gray 'Proceed to cart' selection and purchase additional services.
Posted by Steve Wilhelm at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2005
What is captology?
The term "captology" is based on the acronym: Computers As Persuasive Technology. Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technology.
So what's persuasive technology?
Persuasive technology describes any interactive computing system designed to change people's attitudes or behaviors. From the speed limit signs that display your speed as you drive past to computer games that help asthmatic children better treat their illness, any time any piece of technology from a mobile phone to a supercomputer influences the decision-making processes of a human it can be considered persuasive technology.
Persuasion is often confused with deception or coercion and while technology and media are often used to these ends, for the purposes of captology persuasion is defined as "an attempt to change attitudes or behaviors or both". True persuasion requires intentionality as it "distinguishes between a planned effect and a side effect of technology". For example, since the invention of video games, children have become more sedentary as they play games sitting in front of a screen, rather than playing actively outdoors. This was not an intended effect, but a side effect of video games. Persuasive technologies are those which are intentionally designed to elicit a planned effect that emerges from the use of the technology.
To learn more about science behind persuasive technology, check out BJ Fogg's book, Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. http://tinyurl.com/b5qw6
Posted by Matt Markovich at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2005
More captology examples that'll make you think
Surveillance seems to get be getting more popular, with a system that can monitor a baby's heart rate, take pictures, and even videotape the infant. There's also a device that will disable a car's ignition if you're too drunk to drive. Interestingly, unlike other similar devices that require the user to blow into (for a Breathalyzer analysis), this one detects intoxication through the skin of your hands.
Want to swim faster? Why not use tracking? And why didn't we think of this before?
In an example of what I call voluntary surveillance, Webolodeon is an application that pops up every 5 minutes to ask if you really need to be surfing the Web.
If your work is done, just cancel the dialog box and quit the app; if you’re not finished (and you really need to keep zipping around the Interweb a bit longer), insert a virtual nickel by typing a summary of what you’re working on.
The last example today is of competition, which is a powerful motivating force. A Japanese bank decided to use gaming and competition to distract its ATM customers from waiting for a transaction to complete. Brilliant.
If you have examples, send them our way and we'll post them here!
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2005
Captology slices, dices, and saves lives
Put aside budgeting or improving memory (those are cool uses of captology, too). The New Yorker reports on Mr. Martin, a lifelike, technological mannequin that's helping train the medical students of tomorrow:
Fortunately, Martin is not a real patient but a mannequin, an electronic instructional device known in medicine as a simulator. In many ways, he looks and behaves like a living person: his blue eyes blink, his pupils dilate, his skin is pliant, and his chest expands and contracts as he breathes. If you place a stethoscope over the spot where his heart should be, you can hear authentic beating sounds. His lips, tongue, and windpipe can swell—as a person’s would in the event of a severe allergic reaction—and his teeth can be knocked out.
Does it work? The article reports on research by Dr. Richard Satava, who tested the performance by surgeons who had used a simulator vs. those who had not. In a nicely designed study, he discovered that surgeons who had used the simulator completed procedures 29% faster, less likely to hesitate, make errors, etc (check the article for the details).
So it seems that this type of simulator is perfect! Why wouldn't we use it?
Well, let's just think through one ethical implication: Although technologies are often thought of as neutral, they're not. They come with a bunch of cultural values and assumptions. After all, who designed them? Middle-aged, well-educated white males? How does that influence the simulator itself? This isn't a direct criticism of Martin the Mannequin, but of simulators in general. Let's assume that Martin the Mannequin is a young man from America, which we can infer because he's Caucasian and young-looking. He seems to have some an internal medical condition. Would it be the same as another patient from another country, where the diet/exercise/lifestyle is very different?
Certainly, for most medical conditions, they would manifest similarly across populations. But there are many conditions that are typical only in very specific populations. And if a teaching program were to only use mannequins representing certain populations (which they're not, but play along), would it affect surgeon's conception of disease in various cultural/ethnic groups? You bet.
So how do the simulation designers account for this?
The answer, of course, is that they can't. Once a technology tries to become everything to everyone, it's useless. But as much as possible, simulators should go hand-in-hand with real-life experiences. As they say, you can't learn it all in a book. So while a persuasive technology may do incredible good, it's always--ALWAYS!--necessary to think through the potential downsides, and to educate the users of your design's implications.
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2005
Direct Action Meets Direct Dial
Recently, the grassroots political organization People for the American Way (PFAW) sent out an email alert to their members as a response to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's threat to use "the nuclear option" to kill the filibuster. The email briefed recipients on the issue and offered them a new, and virtually immediate, tool to act: their cell phones.
Although form faxes and emails have become a standard way to let one's elected representatives know how they feel on particular issues, it's often difficult to act quickly in response to a given development. The time between when an issue requires attention to when an organization can formulate a response, contact their base and actually have those individuals take action can be relatively sluggish—and can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
PFAW encouraged their members to fill out a form contained in the body of an email alert which included a request for the recipient's cell phone number. If the nuclear option was exercised, it would trigger a text message, pre-populated with their senator's phone number, to be sent to their mobile phone allowing recipients to directly contact their senator and immediately light up senate switchboards.
To check out the mailing, visit People for the American Way for more information.
Power to the people...
Posted by Matt Markovich at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2005
How to make your kids brush their teeth for longer
When I was a kid, I hated brushing my teeth. When I got together with other friends, we would tell each other all the tricks we used to avoid brushing (and convincing our parents that we DID brush).
This went on until one of my friends pointed out that "If you're just sitting there with the water on, you might as well brush, right?"
I started brushing after that.
Hasbro has come up with a new way to encourage kids to brush and it's a great example of persuasive technology:
Now, Hasbro has a product it thinks it can take to the bank: a musical toothbrush. When pressed to the teeth, the toothbrush renders a recorded riff from a pop star that lasts two minutes -- precisely the amount of time dentists say children should spend brushing their teeth.
The Wall Street Journal reports more: Got a Song Stuck In Your Head? Try Brushing.
PS--Although this is cool, all of us here are wondering the same thing: Does it really work?
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 06, 2005
MyFoodPhone: Nice implementation of persuasive technology
MyFoodPhone lets you monitor what you're eating and change the amount/quality of food you eat.
*It's pretty simple, actually.
* With a camera phone, you take pictures of what you eat.
* You upload the pictures to your personal dietitian.
* Once a week, your dietitian analyzes your information.
* She then sends you a video clip of feedback.
* Follow your dietitian's advice and you should begin to see results.
Nice blend of technology and people (the product doesn't try to do everything--it simply augments the abilities of expert dieticians).
Check out the details here
Posted by Ramit Sethi at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
NetFlix uses persuasive technology and I don't like it
At the intersection of captology and business is a tricky space where the ethics are sometimes murky. Netflix, the online video service, has entered it head-on. It turns out that they use their customer database to treat certain customers preferentially; if you're new, you'll get more movies faster. Why? It turns out that Netflix loses money if a customer rents more than 5 movies per month. As a result, if Mr. Joe Customer rents too many movies, he'll notice that his movies are being shipped and processed much slower and, theoretically, he'll be less likely to order more movies. Some enterprising people actually tested this and found it to be true:An Analysis of Netflix's DVD Allocation System
Netflix Calculator Why are we so turned off by what Netflix is doing? Part of the reason is what psychologists call framing, or how something is presented to us. Just as there was an uproar when Coke floated the idea of charging more on hot days, Netflix can't win many points by taking something away from its customers. (Coke should have lowered the price on cold days, thus benefiting consumers, at least in perception.) It's also unfortunate that they're changing behavior by constraining options instead of giving us more choices. I know there are business concerns here, but maybe there's a better way. If I were Netflix, I'd do a few things:
- Frame the early shipping as a benefit of going with Netflix.
- Market to customers that you're the scrappy underdog (against Amazon and Blockbuster) and you're working day and night to beat them. Everybody loves an underdog, after all. I'd probably test this before a nationwide launch.
- Rather than intentionally slowing processing/delivery service, think about what other services you could offer that would satisfy your customers and keep them occupied. Instead of using your considerable technology to focus on your "bad" customers--the ones who rent a lot--look at them as an opportunity for a premium service of ultra-quick processing and delivery.
Posted by at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2005
A haunting example of unethical persuasive technology
Here's a great (and terrifying) example of what designers could use technology for if no ethical checks existed. Imagine you called your local pizza place in the year 2020... http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5927 Also note the effectiveness of this simulation as a way to get the point across quickly. Would the effect be the same if you read a paper about this?Posted by at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2005
What does a persuasive mirror mean?
NewScientist is reporting that Accenture's European Lab is reportedly building a "persuasive mirror," which would alter your image based on your exercise, diet, and a few other factors. If you sit around all day and eat donuts, for example, you'd appear haggard, old, and overweight. Here's my take on the concept. This is an intriguing idea. It uses simulation to ostensibly change attitudes and behaviors for a very positive outcome. I had a few thoughts: Simulations are extremely effective persuasion tools because they persuade in context--we're not getting an advertisement at the grocery store or on the subway. We're alone, secure in our homes, when this persuasion would take place. When our cognitive safeguards are down, we're more easily persuaded. Also, it's important that the users are correctly informed about the function and purpose of the persuasive mirror. If they see it as credible and useful, they're more likely to be persuaded.(Ordinarily a statement like that would make people uncomfortable--the idea that people are "more likely to be persuaded" and that it's a good thing. In this case (and many other recent examples), the goal is not to encourage people to buy yet another gadget or change their attitudes about a political issue. Here, the goal is to shift attitudes toward a healthy lifestyle and that's almost always a universally good thing.)
The mirror has a few advantages by virtue of its design. It's actually a very clever idea: It persuades at the right time and place, just as users are intentionally looking in the mirror. It's a novel technology, which can hide the persuasive intent. Our user, John, might think "This is fun!" without realizing the subtle influences it has on his attitudes and behaviors. This is, of course, a double-edged ethical sword. And the mirror is unobtrusive, responding only when users request information.
There are a few clear concerns, of course. Technology embodies our human biases. This mirror is no different. Users will experience the designers' view of how certain behaviors result in physiological change. Because this is a simulation, users will probably suspend disbelief, raising the potential for any biases in the technology to be more easily accepted. In other words, John might trust his mirror more because it is a novel technology, not realizing that human designers' biases are behind it.
Could the mirror be used in different ways? Of course. We can imagine it being used nefariously, for a certain potato-chip manufacturer to simulate a "better" look on the mirror when someone eats its chips. As is common in technologies, we might see feature creep, in which tons of unexpected features come to be found in the mirror. For example, a creative (but misguided) designer might say, "What if we allowed the mirror to track the amount of time you spent with your kids, the speed you drove on the highway, and the number of emails you responded to today? We could show how all those things affect you every day!" Perhaps, but that's not the point of the mirror. On the other hand, if this mirror is successful, we might see more sophisticated versions of it in the future.
Above all, testing is key. Is the mirror simply a cool device, or is it actually causing changes in attitudes and behaviors? How long do the effects last? The researchers will probably measure these things before and after the mirror is placed in a home in order to understand the influences it has on users. Can they be augmented with complementary technologies? If there were a "Persuasive Home Suite" of other technologies that worked together, attitude/behavior change might be more persistent over the long term. For example, as part of this Home Suite, there might be an opt-in feature on your microwave that would note what you eat every day and present you a list at the end of the week to track your calories. Your scale might praise you when you reach your sensible weight goals. And your Persuasive Mirror might one day be linked with your friends' mirrors--if you allowed it, of course--so you could see how the others were doing and work towards your goals together.
There will be more technologies like this, absolutely. We've just recently seen persuasive technologies being intentionally developed to persuade online and in public spaces. One of the next frontiers is to change private attitudes and behaviors and, naturally, the home is a logical setting. What's fascinating will be the ways in which people evaluate, accept, and reject persuasive technologies in their private spaces. Designers have a huge opportunity ahead of them but will have to be careful to carefully test and validate their assumptions before launching any persuasive technologies. They'll have to keep the ethical considerations of persuasion in mind, too.
NewScientist article: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524856.200
Posted by at 04:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 04, 2005
Some new examples of persuasive technologies
Persuasive technology is hopping! Check out some recent things I ran across...
Simply insert Doctor Frog into the soil and it will alert you when your plant needs water...This friendly little frog will chirp and croak until your plant gets the water it needs.By ACT communications
Can video games improve surgeons' performance? We've pointed to prior research about video games and patients before. But here's a new twist:
Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, he [James Rosser] says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game Super Monkey Ball.Read about it at Marginal Revolutions.
Simulations to train military personnel. Find out why the Army just extended its contract with the a military-systems simulator--for $100 million.
"It's as close to the real thing as we can make it," he said. "In 10 years we've come this far. I can't imagine what it'll be like in another 10."Wired reports why simulations are so hot in the military.
Posted by at 02:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 11, 2004
Buy Blue
In the credibility and disclosure department, here's a website that shows where corporate retailer's donations end up... so you, the consumer, can make purchasing decisions based upon political preference. The site has an obvious bias, although it acknowledges that not all "blue" companies are paragons of virtue. It states as a long-term goal reduction of corporate contributions across the board. The data comes from Open Secrets and the FEC. Buy Blue Our goal here is to provide you information on who gave what to what political party this last election cycle. There are many factors which will eventually pertain to the "Blue-approved" label, however with buying season upon us, we quickly wanted to give people SOMETHING to go off of. Political donations and their effects are but one of many factors we will look at when a company is taken into consideration. We understand that there are Blue-contributors which have less than savory business practices, and we will be focusing on "the big picture" in the coming weeks. Sometimes there is just no choice as to who to can buy from and we wholeheartedly encourage buying from local and independent businesses wherever and whenever possible. The long term goal is to help reduce corporate money from politics; this is not a geographical boycott.Posted by at 02:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo Web Beacons
Yahoo is using something called "Web Beacons" that utilize cookies on your machine and listening agents on certain websites to track your usage and determine whether you have opened particular emails. Yahoo Web Beacons (from Yahoo's privacy policy)Posted by at 02:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 04, 2004
Facial Expressions
The use of facial expressions on Sorry Everybody is central to its persuasive power. People are so strongly moved by images of faces that the accessibility of and popular desire to use a system that allows people to share their faces and messages with the world is a significant development in long distance communication among strangers. It is quite impressive that faces can have so much effect even when one realizes the very real performative aspect to the affectation of a particular expressionmany of the expressions are assumed in very specific and presentation-driven ways.Posted by at 06:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2004
Target Start-of-Shopping-Season Wakup Call
For the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush, Target offered a free wakup call service so shoppers could get as early a start as possible. A mix of celebrities and characters were offered, and the site has commercials advertising each one as they compete for your attention. Target WakeUp Call I heard through the grapevine that the service had huge signup but that many of the calls were made late.Posted by at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pentagon Using PR Campaign to Plan War Campaign
The technology is media rather than computers, but here's a lovely article about the Pentagon's use of PR and misinformation as a tool of war. PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror "The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which was opened shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, after reports that the office intended to plant false news stories in the international media. But officials say that much of OSI's mission using information as a tool of war has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government."Posted by at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack