Title: Guilt And Shame As A UI Design Element
Context: Why waste time encouraging users to do something when it’s so much easier to shame them into doing it?
Synopsis: You probably don’t call your mother enough. Do you floss twice a day? Didn’t think so. You certainly could have done without that cookie you had yesterday. There is so much about our lives that we feel guilty about, but good news! Now, we can heap more shame onto ourselves simply by using — or more accurately: not using according to design intent — all types of products, services, and UI’s. Yes, just as parents have understood, since time immemorial, the most effective way to communicate a call to action is not through the use of pleasantries (“Please clean your room”) but rather by appealing to the fragility of an end-user’s conscious (“Even though I spent 48 hours in excruciating labor with you, I guess I’ll just clean your room once I’m done scrubbing all the floors in the house”). The avoidance of guilt is a much better motivator than the promise of a small bit of potential pleasure. In fact, you might want to call your mom right now…and offer her a job on your UX team.
Best Bit: “The fact is, yeah, we probably ought to feel a little guilty about what we’ve gotten up to on the Internet in the last few years. I mean, look at your Google history (seriously, you are sick).”
via buzzfeed.com
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