Motivating, enabling and triggering
– posted September 4th, 2008 by Belen Barros No comments
The opening keynote at MobileHCI ‘08 was about persuading with technology: can we persuade people to eat healthier, or to be more energy efficient, using technology deployed on a mobile phone?
We are all in the persuasion business, even if we don’t like to think of it that way. In the end, you want people to do something on your website: buy books, download software, recommend you to a friend, or just learn a bit more about you.
To get someone to do something, 3 things have to happen:
- Motivation - “I want to do this”.
The utility of your website (its ability to solve a major problem for a user) boosts (or depresses) the user’s motivation. - Ability - “I am able to do this”.
Applying usability principles enables users and breaks ability barriers. - Trigger - “I am prompted to do this”.
Opportune, relevant and appropriate calls to action are part of good design.
Do you know what you want people to do on your website?
- Are you feeding your users’ motivations? Are you designing your products / website with utility in mind?
- Are you ensuring that visitors can use your website? Are you applying usability to enable action?
- Are you triggering your users? Are you using information architecture, interaction and graphic design to encourage action?
For more on persuasive technology check BJ Flogg’s website
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Categories Design, Usability, Web Site Management
