Persuasive Government

At HFI, we've been exploring the principles of persuasion engineering and persuasive design for a number of years now. We've helped many clients understand the drives and blocks that affect users behavior on their websites and then employed proven design principles to make sure users "will do" when they visit the site. This has been a very powerful addition to the more conventional "can do" aspects of usability. Together, "can do" and "will do" define the larger user experience.

Many of our commercial customers have enthusiastically embraced this new and expanded way of created winning user experiences. They understand that designing a usable website is necessary but not sufficient. They need a website that users can use and want to use.

I do a lot of work with government agencies. Sadly, many government agencies don't see how PET (our term for Persuasion, Emotion & Trust) really applies to them. The most common reason that we hear for why government agencies don't or shouldn't pay attention to principles of persuasion is that "Persuading is for selling things. We don't sell anything." Digging in to that a bit deeper, we hear things like, "Persuading is about tricking people to do what they don't want to do. We can't do that as the Government." and "Persuading is about increasing your conversion rate. We're just providing information, so there's no need to convert."

Let's take a look at those in order. First, the principles of persuasion are merely tools. They can be used for good or for evil. In our PET course, we talk to students about the "dark arts". We warn them about how these principles can be used for nefarious purposes (and strongly encourage them not to!), but that they can also be used for good. A mobile phone can be used as a component in a detonator. It can also be used to call 911 when you need help. Persuasive tools can be used to get somebody to buy something they don't want or to convince people that filling out their census form is a good idea. A tool is a tool. Commercial organizations can use PET principles to persuade their end users to do things. So can government agencies.

Second, "converting" can be very narrowly understood to mean "buy something." That's how the term is normally used in the popular press. More generally, though, "converting" means that the user has done what they were intended to do. That could mean buying something, but it could also mean submitting a form, finding a piece of information, or contacting a government official. There's a very nice book by Ken Miller called We Don't Make Widgets: Overcoming the Myths That Keep Government from Radically Improving where Miller very nicely explains why government really does "sell widgets" and that a systems-based understanding of the entire process can help improve the effectiveness of their efforts. I'd recommend any government agency check it out.

Persuasion may not seem as applicable to government web site design as it does for commercial ones. It absolutely is though. In fact, I would argue that getting people their Medicaid benefits, filling out the Census, or contacting their legislator about a piece of legislation is much more important than buying a book, sweater, or insurance policy. A usable web site is key to that, but it's only half of the solution. Just because they can do doesn't mean that they will do. Persuasion is critical... even for the government.