Are UX designers preying on customer anxieties thanks to UX insights?
Is this dark pattern type nr. 12 of the 11? There is an increase in dubious patterns in check out flows which are not misleading, but using negative stimuli to sell additional parts of a service.
Is this good for the UX profession or should we collectively set standards on facilitating these various-shades-of-grey online sales patterns?
UX research has greatly improved our understanding of customer motivations and actions online. They have generated UX insights that have not only led to user friendly services but also what our users’ insecurities, anxieties and fears are. The last couple of years I see more and more sites trying to benefit from these negative drivers instead of improving the actual overall experience.
Online purchase flows
Services are increasingly sold in multiple parts online; like taking a suitcase with you has become a separate part to be purchased of an airline ticket. With this ‘parts selling’ of a service it is easy to slip in a few steps that will play on the anxiety of the customer. Steps that increase the complexity of the purchase flow but generate plenty of extra revenue to offset that for the business.
The negative triggers the user is exposed to must not outstrip the perceived benefit that service offers. The positive experience is usually the low price and easy selection of the basic product or service. Then the anxiety trigger is used as a threat, a risk to downgrade the service you just bought if you don’t sign up for extra’s.
That is separate and quite different way of triggering additional items like insurance, hotel, car, etc… These are additional and don’t impact the core service you just purchased.
Playing on customer anxieties
Recently I had to book a flight for my summer holidays. I started on a price comparison site and proceeded to the EasyJet website to buy my tickets. The first part to select my flights was pretty straight forward. The suitcases extra; we’re used to that and most airlines do this now. Not a problem.
But then the pestering started; was I going to sit next to my 5-year-old son unless I paid more to reserve seats to sit next to each other? Other airlines have, allegedly, been separating families by an algorithm if they did not pay.
The EasyJet site used to be very straightforward for ordering flights. They did their brand name justice. Easy. Now they seem to be using customer insights to play on emotions and behaviours. Going for optimal Cash eXtraction instead of the optimal Customer eXperience. Actively playing on customer concerns of not being able to sit next to their children, friends or family.
What they are doing seems to come straight from the UX manuals, only inverted. The way they measure success is different. That success is not the best user experience, it is a “…the user didn’t leave, and we got him/her to spend more…” performance indicator.
In the USA a law was passed that states that children under the age of 13 must be able to sit near their parents (or guardians). That is the law catching up and setting boundaries to protect the most vulnerable groups of consumers.
The PUX/CAX ratio
Get the balance right and customers will go all the way to closing the deal. Ensure your entry price stays low for comparison sites to get them in and pester them a little, not too much, to take them all the way to the check out.
Let’s call it the PUX/CAX ratio: The Positive User eXperience versus Customer Anxiety eXperience. Or are there any NPS (Net Promoter Score) questionnaires that take into account the perceived pressure of paying more and buying now?
Dark patterns
There are clearly identifiable interaction patterns that are intended to deceive, mislead in order to get the user to do things they did not intend to do. The site Dark Patterns lists 11 of these interaction patterns that are used to mislead.
The type of pattern I am describing here is not misleading the user but is about potentially de-grading the experience the customer will get after they purchased the main service or product.
Patterns that play on the customers emotions by content and suggestion. That the item just purchased has the risk of not being enjoyed as intended. Building on insecurities and feeding anxiety in order to stimulate extra purchases as a peace of mind for the customer. Like having to pay extra for being able to sit at the same table with your friends in a restaurant, or ensuring the waiter won’t have to opportunity to spit in your food.
These are sales techniques legislators are playing catch up with. Increasingly defining legislation to define clear boundaries of what is acceptable and not. It’s a bit a cat and mouse game for years to come. Can UX designers play a positive role in this?
Who is doing this?
I am guessing UX designers are often responsible for designing and implementing these pretty murky anxiety stimulating patterns. Based on personas and better behavioural understanding due to better customer research. Do we as UX designers want to facilitate these patterns that don’t actually help users? That’s not why I got into UX.
It is not always clear how negative these extra sales steps are. Most fall in a grey area between light and dark. Should we, as a profession, define some gradients and boundaries? How dark is dark and when is a shade of grey too dark? How far can you go to feed on a users’ anxiety and insecurity?
Customer Anxiety Designers
Exploitative practices like these are now being investigated by industry bodies. Are we going to wait for legislation to catch up each and every time we find a technique like this? Is UX going to be the facilitator of a new cat and mouse game with legislators?
Booking.com is a great example of an online service utilizing lots of these customer nudge techniques to close a deal*. It is as if we are using all the user experience insights from the last decade and are turning those into just the right amount of customer anxiety to improve the conversion rates by a few percentiles.
If they use these techniques we should be much clearer on how they generate some of the facts used to persuade you to purchase NOW! Are there really only 3 rooms left, of that type, on that day? Or does the hotel only offer a small percentage of their rooms via a hotel booking site, creating an artificial shortage? There could be 200 rooms left at the hotel.
Other industries start doing the same
If airlines have been successful in breaking up their core product and selling normal parts as extras, it is very likely other industries will follow in a similar manner.
Could hotels start to utilize these techniques too in future? That way hotels can keep their initial prices low on hotel comparison sites, but up the price with all kind of items during the purchase flow.
How far are we going to go with this? Where are we going to draw the line? Is this something legislators have to do? Or should we first be clearer how many shades of grey there are? Identify these dubious patterns and call them out.
Our role as UX designer
I’m pretty sure the UX designer that designed EasyJet’s ‘pay for my seat’ flow had no bad intentions. Nor had any indication that this could be contravening some UX code of conduct or legal requirements.**
If we have these user insights, in what way is it all right for a company to use those insights? Maybe acceptable for a company, but dubious for a UX designer. Do we need a Hippocratic oath like medical doctors have to ensure UX designers will not use their knowledge for anything but improving the experience?
Professional collective support
It would be a great help if professional associations can create greater awareness amongst the UX community and collectively try to set some standards. Support UX designers so that they know what shade of grey their clients are demanding from them and can stand up collectively against these murky user patterns.
The UX profession is still pretty fragmented and we lack professional supports such as (building) architects and graphic designers have. A professional group that has the standing and professional support to be involved in drawing up legislation. Pro-active instead of re-active based on clear principles instead of use case by use case.
An organization to set a professional ‘User Centered Oath’ before practitioners are let loose on the public to design online check-out flows. A collective organisation that can provide at least some moral support you if you refuse to design darkish patterns like above.
An organisation as described in Mike Monteiro’s article ‘Design’s Lost Generation’. It makes a case for a better professional organisation to establish some core principles and quality of service UX professionals should be able to sign up to or be certified for.
Conclusion
Are we, as UX designers going to continue down this slippery slope of mis-using UX insights? Do we need to establish some clear ethical guidelines and boundaries the digital design profession can agree to?
If we don’t help to clarify the boundaries of these darkish anxiety triggering patterns, we risk UX becoming a major facilitator of negative stimuli on websites, despite our good initial intentions.
You can always decide to become a professional CAX designer…But let’s be clear about it!
If you have any clear examples, especially where UX designers were able to stop implementing such patterns; I would love to hear from you.
Author: George Miles. UX Designer / Digital Architect
Any views expressed are my own personal views. I have not worked for EasyJet or Booking.com.
Notes:
Airlines face crack down on exploitative algorithms. The Independent November 2019.
I’ve mentioned EasyJet and Booking.com for no other reason than that I recently used them. There are far more companies doing this and at even greater extents than the two sites mentioned.
*Booking.com seem to have toned down some of their “xx people are looking at what you’re looking at” messaging.
** The UXPA has a code of conduct. Do the above examples fall under point 3.1 as emotional stress?
Legal requirement in the USA for children under the age of 13 to be seated with their parents.
