When Websites Won’t Take No for an Answer
<i>To help companies gauge where their techniques fall along the persuasive-to-manipulative spectrum, Chris Nodder, a user-experience consultant in Seattle, has developed guidelines for ethical conduct. Systems that nudge people to act in the public interest are “charitable,” he told me, while products like Fitbit, which may help people develop better habits, are “motivational. “If the company benefits more than the consumer, I would call it ‘evil design,’” said Mr. Nodder, who wrote a book on the topic called “Evil by Design.” If an approach benefits the company and the customer equally, he added, “you are probably in the realm of ‘commercial design.’”</i><p>I find it surprising that the researcher apparently makes the distinction whether a certain UI is &quot;dark&quot; or not depending on what it is used for.<p>As a customer, unless I signed up with the explicit goal of habit-change (e.g. for a fitness service) I would very much <i>not</i> like to be manipulated no matter if the cause is &quot;good&quot; or not.