Part 3. Principles of influence and persuasion: not as evil as you’d think

This part of the book will introduce you to principles directly tied to influence and persuasion. You won’t learn how to be a good used-car salesperson. Rather, you’ll learn how to meet your users’ needs by incorporating elements of influence and persuasion into your product’s design.

Chapter 5 provides everything you need to know to address influence using research-supported techniques. You’ll see that much of what we call good design already accounts for influence. You’ll now understand why this is true, and you’ll see how to identify where your product will benefit from designing for influence.

Chapter 6 expands our discussion into the realm of social influence. People are inherently social, and your design should reflect this. You’ll learn about the importance of social influence techniques that help make people feel closer to the groups they belong to and less like the groups they don’t feel part of. You’ll understand the importance of connecting people through your product, as well as making opportunities for reviewing your product easy for users.