The ethics of Nudging and Friction — A Grim World
Nudging is basically creating and designing shortcuts, or incentives for people to take an action easier (Richard, 2008). This method strives for David Kahneman’s system 1 thinking to attract users into executing a behaviour. Meanwhile, friction is temporarily delaying action by adding steps in between that action. To start a habit makes it easier, and to stop a habit, makes it harder to do (Wendel,2020). Adding friction and barrier is a way of creating system 2 thinking so the users can have some time to reconsider their actions.
So… Is Nudging and Friction ethical?
The common, and simplified idea is that nudging is good and friction is bad (hence you often see designers' goals often include reducing frictions). But in reality, the answer to the ethical question is like almost anything else: It’s nuance.
Nudging can be good if it’s promoting good habits and actions. However, if it’s promoting a business, whether it’s good or bad depends on the product itself.
“Nudge policies try to improve people’s decisions by changing the ways options are presented to them, rather than changing the options themselves or incentivizing or coercing people.” — Schmidt & Engelen (2019).
Meanwhile, Friction is usually considered a bad thing that must be avoided, such as un-clickable buttons, slow-loading websites, hidden links, etc. However, if used well, it can be used in situations requiring system 2 like how some sign-up forms won’t allow you to click accept until you have rolled to the end of “terms and conditions” “(even though we don’t read them anyways), or a background check before allowing people to purchase guns.
Needless to say, using the same method, companies can ask designers to design extremely manipulative and deceptive functions within the website, making it impossible for the users to “escape” the product.
It makes my stomach hurt to think about the fact that there’s still no regulation preventing that from happening. One way to implement ethical gatekeeping in the practice would be to either upgrade the regulation and requirements of AODA, or implement an entire set of regulations regarding Dark Patterns.
Impacts on users: Nudging
Nudging, sometimes called “Libertarian Paternalism” is the idea that it is possible to influence human behaviour while still respecting their freedom of choice (Thaler et al, 2013). In a government setting, we can and have seen how the action could also be merged with “forcing” and “mandating” if not careful, causing a major permanent impact on people’s life like their job security. Yes, I may be talking about the government and how they handled the pandemic, and I’m not defending the extreme anti-vaxers either. At this point, it seems like no one is listening to each other, there are no discussions, no clear demands to be made, just polarizations and extreme political fluctuation. Just think about what pushes people to the edge like that, and think about how social media leverage confirmation biases to nudge people, and feed “relevant” content to them so that they can spend more time online using the platform.
I wonder when would be a good time for designers to realize that they have all the power to make the change in today’s world.
But even then, who will decide which is ethical, which is not, and would that leads to unintended consequences such as extreme censorship?
Instagram may have addressed that by adding frictions like hiding content and asking for people's consent, but those are for things that we can collectively see as evil (any kind of violence), not political beliefs (that often address human rights and equality). Sorry for the ramble, these are just questions and thoughts that I have not yet had the answer to.
Impacts on users: Friction
An example of friction is from a meal-kit and grocery delivery service. Their cancelling policy is, similar to many mobile providers in Canada, full of frictions. My experience when trying to cancel because I couldn’t afford it anymore was confusing, long and frustrating. I had to contact a customer supporter, provide authentications, tell them what needed to be done, and wait for them to try to make me stay by providing discounts and such, before processing the request and sending a confirmation email, allowing me to actually cancel.
While this is a “barely” good strategy to retain customers and isn’t technically unethical, it is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. It may work when users only have a few options in a monopoly market, but with the current market full of options for meal-kit delivery, users would not want to refer their friends and family to try a service without the ability to freely cancel the subscription, versus a similar service with the ability to do so. I felt really bad for my roommate, who has taken my referral to try out the service and had to do the same thing after realizing it was not for her. The Peak-End-Rule also drives me away from wanting to come back to the service after cancellation.
Resources:
Kahneman, D., Thinking, Fast & Slow. Louis, MO: Turtle Back Books; 2013.
Schmidt, A. T., & Engelen, B. (2020). The Ethics of Nudging: An Overview. Philosophy Compass, 15(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12658
Thaler, R.H. and Cass R. S. (2003) Libertarian Paternalism. The American Economic Review.
