An archiving note of the study currently in progress in the from.designer community in Summer 2023
This season's book study is not actually about a Book — it deals with digital articles instead.
It runs by exploring psychology terms covered on the site growth.design and sharing related case studies.
The author/operator divides the interaction process between user and product, or the user's decision-making stages, into the following steps:
1. ? Filtering information
2. ? Finding meaning
3. ⏰ Acting within the given time
4. ? Storing part of the interaction in memory
Session 1 (July 1) — presentation deck
It's already my fourth time, but presentations still feel unfamiliar... Maybe it's even more so because it's an online presentation rather than face-to-face — making excuses is my only joy?. The topics I presented after the study were ? Peak-End Rule ? Sensory Appeal ? Zeigarnik Effect ? Endowment Effect.
The related material can be found at the link below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GBEKPW3aQ-btR79OfDJW6kky1RjQL-DA/view
Presentation_Byun Chanwoo_The Psychology of Design.pdf
drive.google.com
Session 2 (July 15) — case study materials
As expected, presenting first is the way to go, ha. I could enjoy the study with peace of mind. This time I did case studies, on ? Nudge ? Reciprocity ? Social Proof. The material I gathered can be found at the link below.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qPA8Qay6csmfgeV8ZBiySvF-ChP_ekfrvIcOJqFl3kY/edit?usp=sharing
Copy of Design Psychology_Week 2
Nudge 3) Conditions for nudges? Good nudge [ GUI ]: dialogs such as pop-ups (conversation with the user) 1) Universe (offline) 2) Metaverse (online) [ Timing ]: push notifications (attention) [ Hook ]: UX writing [ Subconscious ]: visual hierarchy. Byun Chan
docs.google.com
During this case study, what struck me most was the reviews of Nudge. Unlike in Korea, the rating for Nudge sold on Amazon (mid-3 stars) was very low locally in the US. The fact that a theory (book) so famous and so taken for granted in Korea was itself a kind of nudge came as a considerable shock. Of course, this might just be the opinion of some local US citizens, but in any case — given that nothing in our country, from democracy to philosophy, mathematics, economics, and sociology, has been free of being imported — this became an occasion to recognize that blind, uncritical learning can give rise to dangerous confirmation bias, on an organizational and even national scale.
Setting aside the difficulties of behavioral economics, the first major problem with this book is what isn't in it, and consequently what the book can be used for. There's no doubt that 'nudges' are a good thing. We know that we're more likely to keep going with a decision when we feel we chose it freely (psychologists call this compliance, and it plays a major role in behavior change theory).
For me, the bigger issue isn't how to 'nudge well' but the direction in which we are nudged, and the policy applications of this idea so far seem in many cases to amount to little more than expanding privatization, dismantling services and social safety nets, and generally weakening the social world that many people depend on for survival.
There's another important flaw tied to this big-picture question of what 'nudges' are used for: the failure to explore the broader sociopolitical issues of who can nudge us — that is, who can become a 'choice architect' in their professional jargon. In a book that takes politics as one of its application areas, the authors are remarkably unaware of, or rather very poorly informed about, power as a core dynamic of politics; at the same time, they have constructed a text focused on getting people who are subject to various forms of political power (health insurance, gas purchases, organ donation, pension fund management, and so on) to act as those in power want them to. The notion of their 'libertarian paternalism' (which is contradictory in many ways, but I'll cut them some slack since, after all, they are economists applying psychology to a wider social context, and so have to wrestle with two disciplines that claim 'science' to assert their credibility) seems to be a synonym for the 'soft power' beloved by modern liberal imperialists. They set up two ideal types — Echo and Human — and then organize the text around a series of methods designed to increase the probability that the (irrational) Human will make a better decision, where 'better' is defined as the kind of decision the (rational) Echo would make. In short, the book is a text designed to promote ways of becoming more like the 'rational economic man' beloved of neoclassical economics, hidden inside popular language. They don't want us to become more powerful or to gain more autonomy and control over our lives — they want to make us more compliant by getting us to make the decisions that others want.
*Libertarian paternalism is the claim that it is reasonable for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make them live longer, healthier, and better lives.
So I have two issues. First, the book is dangerous because it focuses only on means rather than ends — and it's dangerous in the sense that the ends that seem self-evident are actually defined by the very economic models and theories that lie at the heart of the present crisis. Second, even if I accepted those models and theories (I don't), the issue isn't that the book is wrong but that it's merely disappointing. Of course, that may simply be a feature of popular 'academic' books and one might be less disappointed reading more, but as I kept reading I increasingly felt, like Eve Arnold, exhausted by other people's mediocrity. I get enough of that feeling writing my own work.
(Excerpts from a review)
Related link -> https://www.notion.so/thinknormal/Nudge-1edbf8d32adb4a329532f37a541ab634?pvs=4
? Nudge
Subtle hints can affect users' decisions
www.notion.so
Session N (raw data) — integrated resource (in progress)
There are quite a lot of psychology terms introduced in the study source below. So writing presentation slides or case-study material directly didn't seem easy. I felt I needed to organize the source material first by term and use case, so I'm maintaining it as a Notion table and updating it weekly.
List of cognitive biases and principles
A new tool for teams & individuals that blends everyday work apps into one.
www.notion.so
Study material source
Growth.Design — Better Products, Better Growth.
Growth.Design — Better Products, Better Growth.
Level up your product skills with bite-sized tips. Learn the growth & design strategies used by the top product companies in the world.
growth.design
