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The Dark Side of User Experience – When Does Persuasion Become Manipulation?
User experience (UX) design aims to create a better interaction between the user and the interface. It should be intuitive, enjoyable, and importantly, encourage action. However, sometimes the thin line between positive persuasion and manipulation is crossed. When does persuasion (positive) become manipulation (negative), and how can we avoid it?
Written by the UX experts at TZUR – UX DesignReading time: 4 minutes
Creating an intuitive, engaging, and action-driving user experience requires an understanding of how the human brain works, particularly the need to rely on shortcuts and heuristics for quick decision-making. This understanding can quickly lead to crossing the fine line between what we call a "Call to Action" (CTA), which is beneficial for the user, and manipulation, which makes the user take actions that might be good for the company but bad (or even harmful) for the user.
These cases can occur through the misuse of several techniques that influence the user and their decision-making process, such as:
- Scarcity and Urgency - Creating a "false" scarcity or time pressure to make the user decide quickly and impulsively without considering all relevant factors
- Lack of Clarity and Transparency - Using misleading actions, interactions, wording, buttons, or placements to make the user act without fully understanding or being aware of the consequences
- Herding Effect and Social Pressure - Showing fake reviews, non-genuine user numbers, fake ratings, or messages designed to create a false impression that "everyone is doing it"
- Misleading Information Presentation - Presenting information in a way where crucial aspects for decision-making are downplayed while less critical aspects are highlighted, or showing partial information while ignoring important details
- Visual Biases - Displaying visual information (such as graphs, charts, images and graphics) in a way that doesn't reflect reality or distorts it, causing the user to misunderstand the information
- Privacy Violations - Convincing the users to reveal personal information they didn't intend to share and weren't aware of the implications, or asking for personal information not necessary for the action
- Not Preventing Known Pitfalls - Leaving actions, information, or objects that have proven (specifically for the interface or in other cases worldwide) to mislead the users and cause them to take undesirable actions
- Bait and Switch - Presenting certain information to lure the user into action (price, desired feature, value), knowing that the actual goal is merely to create the bait, and it doesn't truly reflect the item itself
- Conditional Actions - Requiring the user to perform an action they are not interested in as a condition for performing another action they are interested in
By recognizing the potential for manipulation and emphasizing ethical practices, UX design can become a powerful force for good. A user-centered approach that prioritizes transparency, builds trust and fosters positive interactions ultimately leads to products and services that people genuinely love to use. This is the true north star of excellent user experience – creating a harmonious experience where persuasion serves the user, not the other way around.
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