Comments on: The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions: So Right and Yet So Wrong http://www.michaelw.net/2009/04/the-art-science-of-seductive-interactions-so-right-and-yet-so-wrong/ Random thoughts from michaelw Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:40:53 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: michaelw http://www.michaelw.net/2009/04/the-art-science-of-seductive-interactions-so-right-and-yet-so-wrong/comment-page-1/#comment-29 michaelw Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:03:20 +0000 http://www.michaelw.net/?p=145#comment-29 Thank you Stephen for the thoughtful response. My own response did not suffer from brevity and got a post of its own: Anderson's Law http://www.michaelw.net/2009/04/andersons-law/ I've posted this in both our comments. Thank you Stephen for the thoughtful response. My own response did not suffer from brevity and got a post of its own: Anderson’s Law http://www.michaelw.net/2009/04/andersons-law/

I’ve posted this in both our comments.

]]> By: Stephen P. Anderson http://www.michaelw.net/2009/04/the-art-science-of-seductive-interactions-so-right-and-yet-so-wrong/comment-page-1/#comment-27 Stephen P. Anderson Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:10:27 +0000 http://www.michaelw.net/?p=145#comment-27 (Hi Michael - I'm posting my response here and on my site!) Could you suggest some "real applications" for me? I'd love to test these ideas out in a really challenging context! On that note, I've been asked about whether these kinds of ideas would work inside an enterprise with something like accounting software or time sheets. My general answer is an emphatic "Yes!" What I'm discussing are essentially human behaviors. I believe if there is a human involved involved in the interaction, then these kinds of things would work (to different degrees or altered for context, of course!). As far as the perception that these are slick marketing techniques-- yes and no. I'm a designer at heart, meaning I [heart] designing good experiences that are meaningful, useful, enjoyable, etc. (more here: http://www.poetpainter.com/thoughts/article/classifying-experiences ). I strongly oppose anything that smells of a bait and switch! In fact, when I use the "getting to first base" analogy, the end goal isn't a home run ("Close the deal!"), the end goal is lasting love and devotion-- which only happens with product/service experiences that deliver the goods day after day! The unfortunate part of this is that you can have a truly great product that no one will sit down to truly understand before they make up their mind. People in general are hit with too much noise all the time. I don't think of the ideas I'm discussing as slick marketing-- I think of this as optimizing for human behaviors. If we know our product is really, really good, but we're having trouble communicating that-- these ideas are intended to help good product designers/developers ease users into using a new product. When I talk about business goals, I talk about value centered design ( http://www.bplusd.org/2005/10/08/value-centered-design/ which is about business AND user value. I'm fond of quoting Peter Drucker who said "there is no business without customers." You can have the most valuable product in the world, but if no one sticks around long enough to realize that-- what do you do next? Just offering something of use to someone and gradually revealing features isn't enough given what we know about attention and decision making. (Hi Michael – I’m posting my response here and on my site!)

Could you suggest some “real applications” for me? I’d love to test these ideas out in a really challenging context!

On that note, I’ve been asked about whether these kinds of ideas would work inside an enterprise with something like accounting software or time sheets. My general answer is an emphatic “Yes!” What I’m discussing are essentially human behaviors. I believe if there is a human involved involved in the interaction, then these kinds of things would work (to different degrees or altered for context, of course!).

As far as the perception that these are slick marketing techniques– yes and no. I’m a designer at heart, meaning I [heart] designing good experiences that are meaningful, useful, enjoyable, etc. (more here: http://www.poetpainter.com/thoughts/article/classifying-experiences ). I strongly oppose anything that smells of a bait and switch! In fact, when I use the “getting to first base” analogy, the end goal isn’t a home run (“Close the deal!”), the end goal is lasting love and devotion– which only happens with product/service experiences that deliver the goods day after day! The unfortunate part of this is that you can have a truly great product that no one will sit down to truly understand before they make up their mind. People in general are hit with too much noise all the time. I don’t think of the ideas I’m discussing as slick marketing– I think of this as optimizing for human behaviors. If we know our product is really, really good, but we’re having trouble communicating that– these ideas are intended to help good product designers/developers ease users into using a new product. When I talk about business goals, I talk about value centered design ( http://www.bplusd.org/2005/10/08/value-centered-design/ which is about business AND user value. I’m fond of quoting Peter Drucker who said “there is no business without customers.”

You can have the most valuable product in the world, but if no one sticks around long enough to realize that– what do you do next? Just offering something of use to someone and gradually revealing features isn’t enough given what we know about attention and decision making.

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