T-Mobile Representative (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

Gift Wrapper (0:19)

Oh hey. Welcome to gift wrapping. Whoa. So is Saldana.

T-Mobile Representative (0:22)

Hey, can you wrap these please?

Gift Wrapper (0:24)

Wow. IPhone 17s.

T-Mobile Representative (0:26)

You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is amazing. Amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.

Gift Wrapper (0:34)

I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.

T-Mobile Representative (0:36)

Well, it's better than socks.

Gift Wrapper (0:38)

So I have to trade in my old phone, right?

T-Mobile Representative (0:40)

No @t mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.

Gift Wrapper (0:45)

Incredible.

T-Mobile Representative (0:46)

In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my Aunt Rosa.

Gift Wrapper (0:49)

Forget that.

T-Mobile Representative (0:50)

Aunt Liz will be jealous.

Gift Wrapper (0:51)

Sounds like my family drama.

T-Mobile Representative (0:52)

Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?

Gift Wrapper (0:56)

To T mobile. The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T mobile is available in U S cellular stores with 24 month legal credits and 4 eligible board inside essentials for well qualified customers. Auto pay + taxes, fees and 35 device connection charge credits and imbalance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Contact Us Finance Agreement 256 gigabytes 830 required Visit T mobile.com Wait a minute. Did this app just ask me if I want to die? So yeah, ridiculous as it sounds, an app did kind of ask me if I want to die. And I'll be sharing deeper about this and other examples of this strategy, if we can call it that way, of some apps and systems to try to convince us into doing something. And as you might know, you're watching this. This is Professor Game. This is a podcast where we usually do either interviews or episodes like this one. In the interviews we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification, Game Think. And we've been doing this for over 8 years at this point and we've been uncovering some of the strategies that can be used to improve customer retention, completion of courses, essentially getting people motivated into taking some sort of, at least in my case, ethical action. And I'm Rob. I'm the founder of Professor Game. I'm also the head of Engagement Strategy at the Octalysis Group, which is the leading premier gamification consultancy in the world. And and I'm also a professor of gamification game based strategies at IE Business School, efmd, EBS University and other places around the world. And if you find the strategies that we discuss here useful, you might want to get on a chat with us. You can do that just by clicking on the link below. So let's dive right in. What are we talking about on this particular episode I am going to potentially make a series about deconstructing some of the not very ethical strategies that some systems use or some dark patterns that are out there and we can see on real examples and real apps and real systems that are either live or in this case I had to find many of the stuff in the archive because they realized it was so wrong that they had to bring it down. And lots of credits by the way to deceptive.design and confirmshaming tumbles tumblr.com they have a lot of good examples there and they have them stored for the fact that you make a screenshot and you can keep it there but it is no longer in the app. And this time we're going to be talking about something that has been coined as confirm shaming. So this thing works by triggering basically uncomfortable emotions, especially as you can imagine from the name guilt or shame to influence your user's decision to making. So they're employing these deceptive patterns that often present us with opt out button labels that are worded in a way that make us sound, that are derogatory or make us feel stupid belittling or anything. They make us essentially try to make us feel bad about that potential choice if we decide to take it. And by targeting the user's emotions and our own self image they tend to get and they actually do increase the likelihood of people giving in to the what we call the desired action rather than taking the opposite or negative action. And ultimately they benefit sort of the service provider to the detriment as well to the user for sure, but also to the medium and even long term relationship that the user might have with this kind of services. And I don't want to spend until forever until sharing with you. Which one is actually the one that I was talking about this was a very public example as well from my medic. This was an app or is an app, I'm not sure, I haven't found it anymore and it says literally I'm reading and you'll find on the screen as well. If you're seeing this on video, my medic would like to send you notifications. Pretty standard, right? You'll be notified about the latest tips, sales and discounts. So you and everyone you know can stay alive. It's already started sounding, you know, a bit too much. Can I stay alive without being in this app? I've never used it and apparently I managed to secure this benefit of being alive without even being there. So there. They start doing a little bit of that there already. And of course you have the big blue button that says allow because you're allowing those notifications to happen. Right? Still very standard. And it's also flashy, bigger. They are pushing you towards the desired action, which, honestly, I think that part is. It's pretty normal that that's what you do. In fact, it could be even coined as something good to be done. You always give options, but of course, you highlight the option that you want or you prefer the user to take, but then you give the other option, obviously. And people who don't want the notifications, they can just click on it. In this case, as you can see on screen, if you're seeing the video, it says, no, I prefer to bleed to death. I mean, come on, this is way too much. You're taking it very, very far away. Of course, if you see it sort of in, in, in. In the cold. I wasn't really, like, this isn't even really my phone. This is just a case I have, I used to use a lot. If you see it in the right context, like, why are you even visiting this? You're probably having perhaps some medical problems or something. You see that. And even though you might even still realize this is like a bit too much, it is still hitting a point. Or it literally can make somebody who is having some very serious medical issues sort of break down in many ways. And what are sort of the things that they're aiming towards here? Here, essentially, to say it in terms which, as I revealed, I will be doing this more and more because it's part of my work here. You are essentially targeting core drive 8 fear. You're making people fear losing something. And here, honestly, this is the ultimate loss of your own life, or in this case even, it's your life and potentially of your closest circle of family. Because, you know, if you don't do this, you don't stay alive or you're bleed to death or whatever the wording is. This is not like, yes, they are targeting a core drive. Yes, they're trying to motivate people into taking an action. But you also have to consider the ethical implications of the way you do things and how you are almost cheating people into agreeing to whatever it is you want them to do. So let's jump right into another example. Let me show it as well on screen if you're seeing it on video often. Monster. Probably heard of this one. I have some version of this. I haven't seen this one in my. Or maybe I have, to be honest, I don't remember. But when you. When you understand the psychology behind these things, and that's one of the intentions of me revealing this, is that when you understand the psychology behind this, it's easier to see what's going on and not be triggered by the emotions that they're trying to compel. So anyways, optinmonster, this. I know it works with WordPress, which is what I use. It says grow your email list. Oh, wow. Okay. That sounds interesting. I have an email list. Okay. Grow your email list. Help. We help transform your site into a lead generation powerhouse. Oh, wow. I have a site. I have an email list. Very good. Get more email subscribers. Fantastic. Yellow highlighted bold. Well, it's not bold, the letters, but it's bigger. It's very visible, very clear. I want to take that desired actions. But what happens if it's a paid service or I just don't want it. I have something else, you know, I don't just don't want it. You go down to the no option and you say, no, thanks, I'm fine with losing customers. Mmm. They're trying to shame me into saying, oh, you either want my solution or you're losing customers. It's trying to kind of validate what they do. I get it. I can understand that is what is going on. I can understand that they're trying to get you to do the desired actions, which is get more email subscribers. Is that wording being used ethically? Again, I am not very sure of that. We can see, once again, a very clear use of Core Drive 8. Usually the Core drives here, since they want you to take action immediately, they tend to be black hat most often or one of the quote unquote neutral ones. Core Drive four or five that can go either white or black hat. They do a black hat use of how you can. You can use these Core drive motivations. Core Drive 8, losing customers. I don't really want to lose customers, so, you know, I want to have them. You also have some Core Drive four ownership and possession. I don't want to lose what I have Or I quote, unquote, have these customers because they came to my site, I don't want to lose them. It's targeting those Core Drive motivations. It's trying to drive you into immediate action. It's not necessarily making me feel good about it. Maybe I click there. And that's the other thing. I'm not sure about this one. This is just an image what I'm showing you. It's not a live pop up that I got on my website. The problem is you click on that and then potentially you have a paywall where oh, you do this and you have to do this through a pay. So it's like, oh, I do that but then I have to pay. So all that motivation, that driving I got there, I already forgot about you telling me I'm going to lose customers if I don't do this. If the pricing structure is not right for me or the benefits or something is not there, that doesn't really get you too far. If you do it that way, we can do another episode, we can do another time where we review places and ways in which this can be done ethically. In fact, I just had an email I got from this webpage. It does analysis of UX on websites and they were actually doing this strategy, but ethically, because this was about, you know, you know, the app too good to go. I don't know if you've heard of it. The concept behind it is that you are purchasing food that otherwise would go literally to waste. So the desired action is you want to activate like this one, you want to act well, like the previous one, you want to activate the notifications. What is a good way to do that? You highlight the positive benefits like here, get more email subscribers there. It's something like, oh, get notified about. Because you have to mention in that one that there's a few of these boxes every day. So you don't want to miss out. So you're not saying activate notifications. It's just like, I don't want more notifications. I'm tired of that. It's make sure you get notified on time so that you don't miss out on these deals. There was a short way in which they put it. And the other one, the other option was it's not as desirable. It's like, oh no, I don't want, I don't want the notification or something like that. Simple one, you're still driving the desired action strongly. You're using the motivation because you're using Core Drive one because the, the, the app is also helping the planet because you're not wasting food. It has. It gives you a lot of. It gives you surprise as well. So it's. It's still black hat, so it drives immediate action, but it makes you feel good about it because it's positive surprise. It's not like, oh, I have. I have. I have this. This sense of I have. I'm out of control, as I was out of control. But it's flat fun because I'm going to receive a package of something I like. It's a store. It's a store I like. So it's exciting. It's nice. It's still driving that desired action by highlighting that you don't have to shame people into not doing it. So let's. Let's dive into one more example. What about that? And this one, I like it a lot. Not because I don't like this magazine, Cosmopolitan. I honestly never actually read it because of the word that they use. They say, do you want to stop? Say on top of all the curse word you actually care about. Sign up now. Right. Okay. So they're using, like, strong language. You know, it's like, oh, this is part. That's probably part of the tribe of the way that they speak, the slang that they use internally. Yeah, that's fine. Obviously. Okay. Obviously, I want that. Yeah, it aligns with me if I'm watching this page. And probably I'm very interested in this. So, you know, obviously aligns very well. And the other one is I'm boring. It's not. I don't want to stay on top of things or it's because I'm boring. I don't identify as a boring person at know if I am or not, but I don't identify as a boring person. So I feel initially I don't want to click on that button. And that's exactly what they're aiming for. You want me to shame me into clicking, obviously. Just because I'm not boring. Not because I want the notifications, not because I want. I'm motivated towards doing that desired action, but it's because, like, oh, I don't want to be boring. So it is not about whether or not you can use these. These core drives and these things that drive identity and this, you could almost say it's part of also a bit of that social. The core drive five of social influence and relatedness. Because I don't want to be boring. You know, being boring is not. You're not usually just boring to yourself. You're boring with relation to other people. So I don't want to be a boring person. But here you're saying you're shaming me because I'm boring because I don't want to get updated on Cosmopolitan or whatever. It. It doesn't really align to what they're saying. And again, you know, the obviously I would say it's a good one. Maybe they can do even better than that. But the no button, even though they want to discourage you somehow to not doing this, you want to make sure you keep it ethical. It's transparent because deep down. And we've had an episode where we analyze the ethics on gamification. Well, two actually. One where it was a solo episode where I was analyzing both what Nira Yal and Andrzej Mercevsky say about this. And then I had actually Andrzej Merczewski discussing about this. So you can find the references on the show notes if you're interested in that too. It is about when the user understands what is going on behind that. Are they just gonna have a laugh and still take the desired action? It's like, aha, yeah, yeah, I'm obviously not boring. Haha. I'll do it. I was gonna do it anyways. I understand why you're trying. I was going to click on obviously or you know, I don't want to be boring, but I also don't want notifications anyway. So, you know, screw you. I'm still going to click on boring or I'm going to feel pushed away from your brand because you're trying to trick me. And I don't like that. When you're making those kinds of decisions and you're using these patterns that you can definitely use there, bear in mind that this could be a way to maybe win very quickly in the short run, but also lose in the long run. And usually businesses don't survive just on doing the best that they can on the short run, but also doing the best for them in the long run. That's what makes businesses be businesses. So keep that part in mind and I'll share a very quick one last one. This is actually from Google. If your phone is stolen, lost or stolen, your private info won't be protected. Why don't you want a screen lock? This is after you say I do not want a screen lock for whatever reason I keep this phone at home. Okay. Maybe that's a reason. Nobody really leaves phone fully at home all the time. Phones are not for that. Usually. At least unlocking my phone is a hassle. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. So I prefer to leave my personal info unprotected. Okay. I don't have time to set this up. And I'm okay with leaving my private info unprotected for now. I keep my personal info unprotected in case someone needs to use my phone in an emergency. Ah, come on. Or other. Right. They're showing you these options, so you revert your decision you took before so that you actually do lock your phone. I understand cybersecurity is important. They're trying to push you back into that. They don't really have to push it all the way to make it sound like you're stupid. So you. Oh, I don't want to be stupid. So I'll go back into this. It's taking it a little bit too far, at least if you ask me. Just by seeing this. Of course, I don't have the full context. I'm just showing this, as I said before, because I want you to realize what is going on so that when you see these things, something is triggered in your mind and you start realizing what is going on. How is it motivation being triggered on me so that I take these desired actions and you take a look behind the curtain and say, well, even with or without these techniques, they're trying. They're pushing me for a reason, right? Like here, they're pushing me because they. They really want me to log my phone, secure my data. All right, so that. Does that mean I'll revert my decision? Okay, maybe I will, or no, I just won't. So I'll make my choice. But I don't want you to be making choices out of feeling shamed. And keep in mind what I'm saying. Like, make this sort of front of mind. You're being shamed by an app. This is literally a bunch of code. You can't be shamed by an app. If you're being shamed by a person, it's like, well, you know, that's not great, but it's a. At least it is a person. Don't let yourself be shamed by an app. So let's wrap this up. How can you take a different route to that? Instead of using very strongly black hat techniques into shaming people, into not taking that action you don't want them to take. How about you use maybe a little bit of those black hat, but you also balance it with white hat into what you want them to do, rather than shaming them for not to not do this action. Show them what are the good things, how you can do some Core Drive 1 Epic meeting and calling how you can use some Core Drive 3 Creativity and feedback so that people can actually do those actions because they want to do the action. You convince them of doing those actions. Keep in mind that using the white hat way in these ones will not necessarily drive immediate action. So you maybe combine a little bit of black hat ethically towards taking the action, not away from not taking the desired action. By shaming people into feeling stupid, you want people to feel smart and to not regret that decision later. This is very, very important. Doesn't sound like it's quick, but you do not want to bully people into using your product or accepting your notifications. You know you can say have the no button, say not right now, I'm good. That also opens the door for maybe in the future. I want this. You know, you respect the user's agency long term. Loyalty does not come come from tricking people. It comes from trust, not traps. The final concept I want to leave you here with is if you need to trick people into using your product, then the problem is your product is not good enough or it's not there to solve any real problem. So don't trick people into doing it. Use these techniques to increase their motivation towards it, towards making the desired actions. But if they still don't want to get notifications, that's fine. You don't need to shame people into doing something like that. And if any of this content has been interesting for you, I think you might find having a chat with us on Professor Game about what this can mean for your products very, very useful. So just go to the link on the description, click there and let's talk about how we can make your product even a lot better, increase our retention, make better loyalty and do it ethically with the right techniques and strategies for motivation. And at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it's game over.