{"id":212,"date":"2010-10-04T12:25:12","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T17:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/?p=212"},"modified":"2023-11-11T20:21:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T20:21:02","slug":"nudge-nudge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/04\/nudge-nudge\/","title":{"rendered":"Nudge, Nudge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent\u00a0Wired <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/epicenter\/2010\/10\/love-google-hate-facebook-why\/all\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">article<\/a> discussed the dangers of trying to influence users through <em>nudging<\/em> &#8212; the practice of structuring a person&#8217;s choices in such a way as to get a desired result. It highlighted one of the key dynamics facing today&#8217;s high-tech companies as they shift from\u00a0relatively independent creators of &#8220;whiz-bang&#8221; software to\u00a0full-fledged consumer-oriented businesses. This tension between following your bliss and taking into account the expectations of others can be a tough cultural change for some companies.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As corporate self-interest becomes more important than user satisfaction, the nudging company\u2019s approach to consumers becomes fragmented and incoherent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The target of the article was Facebook but it could just as easily be applied to anything from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/david-c-wilson\/fox-news-poll-what-does-b_b_734101.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">politics<\/a> to parenting. I remember learning pretty quickly that if I wanted my five-year-old daughter to put on\u00a0a sweater, I didn&#8217;t come right out and ask her if she wanted to put on a sweater &#8230;\u00a0I asked her if she wanted to put on the red sweater or the blue sweater. Sheer genius. Of course, as she got older, she got\u00a0wise to my evil machinations and the nudging\u00a0approach started to fail.<\/p>\n<p>The problem\u00a0for businesses is that their customers are at least as savvy as\u00a0young children\u00a0and these people\u00a0get frustrated when\u00a0websites, surveys,\u00a0or automated phone menus don&#8217;t offer up reasonable choices (or even try and trick them into doing something they don&#8217;t want to). This type of behavior can contribute to reduced customer satisfaction, lost revenues and lower brand value.<\/p>\n<p>Updates:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>?\/??\/????<\/strong> &#8211; Finished the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness\/dp\/014311526X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness<\/a> by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein. Good book. I agree with many of their ideas but at least one of my libertarian friends still feels it impinges on an individual&#8217;s freedom of choice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>6\/19\/2015<\/strong> &#8211; Article on the use of nudging in government (link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/06\/21\/opinion\/sunday\/when-america-says-yes-to-government.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/06\/21\/opinion\/sunday\/when-america-says-yes-to-government.html?_r=0<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>11\/11\/2023<\/strong> &#8211; Turns out that the economists studying &#8220;nudging&#8221; have now disavowed their original study. Some of the data supporting that research has also apparently been faked. It&#8217;s the cold fusion of the data world! (link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2023\/11\/07\/nudge-thinking-economics-policy-flawed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2023\/11\/07\/nudge-thinking-economics-policy-flawed\/<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent\u00a0Wired article discussed the dangers of trying to influence users through nudging &#8212; the practice of structuring a person&#8217;s choices in such a way as to get a desired result. It&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[149,12,108],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","tag-nudge","tag-usability","tag-user-experience"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3192,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/3192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}