Persuasive Technology

Persuasive Technology has the purpose of influencing, or even persuading the user. This sounds astonishing at first. But many technologies are supposed to reach this goal, e.g. a petrol gauge indicates to the driver how much petrol is being used. The intention is to persuade the driver to drive economically.

The use of subtle persuasion is important for e-commerce. Every online dealer wishes to sell as much of a product as possible. Along with the Hochschule der Medien in Stuttgart, UID developed a service for the evaluation of e-commerce applications. The design is evaluated on the basis of its psycho-persuasive qualities. The various stages of the buying process are checked for their supportiveness. The results are presented to the online dealer with advise for optimising the persuasive quality of his site.