Persuasive Systems Design: Key Issues, Process Model, and System Features

TLDR

A growing number of IT systems aim to change users’ attitudes or behavior, yet existing social‑psychology theories focus on acceptance rather than systematic design of persuasive software. The article proposes a conceptual framework for Persuasive Systems Design and introduces a new categorization of design principles into primary task, dialogue, system credibility, and social support. The framework outlines the design and evaluation process, identifies seven postulates and the persuasion context, and enumerates 28 design principles with example software requirements, grouped into the four categories. The framework presents 28 design principles, some novel, with example software requirements and implementations.

Abstract

A growing number of information technology systems and services are being developed to change users’ attitudes or behavior or both. Despite the fact that attitudinal theories from social psychology have been quite extensively applied to the study of user intentions and behavior, these theories have been developed for predicting user acceptance of the information technology rather than for providing systematic analysis and design methods for developing persuasive software solutions. This article is conceptual and theory-creating by its nature, suggesting a framework for Persuasive Systems Design (PSD). It discusses the process of designing and evaluating persuasive systems and describes what kind of content and software functionality may be found in the final product. It also highlights seven underlying postulates behind persuasive systems and ways to analyze the persuasion context (the intent, the event, and the strategy). The article further lists 28 design principles for persuasive system content and functionality, describing example software requirements and implementations. Some of the design principles are novel. Moreover, a new categorization of these principles is proposed, consisting of the primary task, dialogue, system credibility, and social support categories.