Persuasive 2009 is now over, and it’s time for reflections.

The speakers and keynotes were really interesting, and there were three intense days getting in information.

One inspiring presentation was by B.J. Fogg where he suggested a eight step design process for persuasive applications.

The main message was to start small, to do not overdo interventions trying to do everything the first time.

Pick a simple behavior that you’re able to measure and create an application that try to change it, then if it success, grow (by repeating, replicating to another behavior, make the behavior harder, scale to more people…). Do fast iterations, a bit agile style, or getting real.

He also presented a quite simplified view of where to “attack” using persuasion: First try to trigger the behavior, if it doesn’t work look if the behavior needs to be simplified, and if not, go back to increasing the motivation.

Now I’m in San Francisco for some days, I’ll keep posting some more reflections about the conference these days.

Low tech persuasion, originally uploaded by It’s a mobile world.

I got with my yearly bill from SNF (Swedish nature protection ngo) some stickers to place in appliances around the house. They try to remind you of energj saving behaviour in-situ, and their style is half funny half guilt creation. my favorite is ‘jag jobbar helst full’ that well, invites to double interpretations..

The sky is more blue, originally uploaded by It’s a mobile world.

How do we persuade people to live more sustainable and make better choices? This is one of the big questions of my research.
In China I saw this example of local adaptation, using images of blue skies to promote solar energy. In Spain for instance this would not work, but in grey-skied Beijing blue skies can be what is needed to make consumers aware of the benefits of sustainable choices.