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Examples
Our blog has new examples
The examples on the lower half of this page are "classic" examples of persuasive technology. That means they are a bit old. To learn about the latest examples of persuasive technology today, see our blog posts. There you will find examples ranging from Facebook to YouTube.
You can watch examples in video
Stanford captology students have created over 150 short videos to demonstrate how captology works online. The clips at CaptologyTV (www.captology.tv) show how web services, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, are designed to motivate and persuade users. When you watch CaptologyTV you'll see how persuasive technology works in popular web sites.
As we created CaptologyTV, we starting seeing patterns of persuasion in the examples. So we dug deeper and synthesized a framework for online persuasion. Our lab published a peer-reviewed paper that summarizes the patterns of persuasion used by virtually every successful Web 2.0 company. We call this process the "Behavior Chain." Please contact Dr. BJ Fogg for an early draft.
Macrosuasion and Microsuasion
In our research on persuasion via computing technology, we've found it useful to identify two types of persuasion: macrosuasion and microsuasion. (You'll find a longer discussion of these concepts in BJ Fogg's book Persuasive Technology.)
Below we share some classic examples of each category.
Examples of macrosuasion
Some interactive computing products were created solely for the purpose of persuasion. We call this type of approach “macrosuasion.” Below you'll find a few examples.
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Persuasive SoftwareQuitnet.com - A website that motivates people to quit smoking. |
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Persuasive DeviceBaby Think It Over - Teen pregnancy prevention doll |
Examples of microsuasion
Most interactive computing products were created for purposes other than persuasion (e.g., productivity, communication, entertainment). Yet these products can have elements of persuasion built into the user experience — in dialogue boxes, reward systems, visual elements, and more. We call these elements of influence “microsuasion.” Below you’ll find a few examples.
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Ebay feedback systemEbay uses a rating system to motivate people to be fair and honest while buying and selling. A colored star and a number is placed next to the users' names to indicate different levels of feedback. To find out more, click here. |
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Nagscreens in sharewarePeople who create shareware like to get paid for their work. Some developers have created “nagscreens” — a dialogue box that reminds people to pay. Here’s an example of a nagscreen from a former captology student, Scott Kleper. |
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Dialogue box in QuickenEven though Quicken is a personal finance application, it uses various elements of persuasion. For example, to reward people for balancing their accounts, the software brings up a dialogue box that congratulates them with balloons and streamers. |
The above examples are real products created by outside companies.
To better understand what the future may hold, Stanford captology students and members of the Persuasive Technology Lab have created over 100 conceptual designs for new types of persuasive technology systems. These designs were once posted on the Web but became too troublesome to maintain. Sometimes these older pages turn up on Google searches.