CS474: Human Computer Interaction - Motivating Action
Activity Goals
The goals of this activity are:- To connect triggers to user actions
Supplemental Reading
Feel free to visit these resources for supplemental background reading material.- The US military is trying to read minds
- The Fogg Behavior Model
- Eyal, N. - Hooked, Chapter 3
The Activity
Directions
Consider the activity models and answer the questions provided. First reflect on these questions on your own briefly, before discussing and comparing your thoughts with your group. Appoint one member of your group to discuss your findings with the class, and the rest of the group should help that member prepare their response. Answer each question individually from the activity, and compare with your group to prepare for our whole-class discussion. After class, think about the questions in the reflective prompt and respond to those individually in your notebook. Report out on areas of disagreement or items for which you and your group identified alternative approaches. Write down and report out questions you encountered along the way for group discussion.Model 1: The Fogg Behavioral Model and The Hooked Elements of Simplicity
Questions
- What are the three elements of the Fogg Behavioral Model (hint - the formula is
B = MAT)? Why do you think the elements are multiplicative? - Which of the three elements of the Fogg Model are the easiest to manipulate? How might you determine which one serves as a barrier to action for a given application?
- What are Eyal's six elements of simplicity?
- Choose one element of simplicity and discuss how it might be incorporated to improve a product that you use frequently.
Explore Further
These curated resources cover the major models of motivation used in product design:
- BJ Fogg - Behavior Design Lab at Stanford — the research lab behind the B=MAP model (behavior happens when Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt converge); browse the resources page for the model’s academic grounding beyond the one-page site in our readings.
- Self-Determination Theory — the leading academic theory of intrinsic motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Contrast this with points-and-badges gamification, which relies on extrinsic reward — and often backfires for exactly the reasons SDT predicts.
- Deterding et al. - From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness (MindTrek 2011) — the paper that gave “gamification” its accepted academic definition; useful for distinguishing meaningful game mechanics from superficial “pointsification.”
- Yu-kai Chou - The Octalysis Framework — a practitioner framework decomposing motivation into eight “core drives,” including explicitly black hat drives (scarcity, loss avoidance) — a useful bridge between this activity and our dark patterns discussion.