I find it so hard to relate to HCI and UX as fields. I mean, do real designers creating great products actually subscribe to this theorising or do they just get on with it? I'm probably completely naive about all of this, but from the outside it looks like a lot of talking and a lack of doing.
I'm a designer and I understand what you mean. There are two different things going on here...
1. Design also has its own "architecture astronauts", people who theorize a lot but don't get things done. They are usually in academia, since there are not many companies willing to pay for design astronauting.
2. Design, despite being more closely related to engineering, is usually expressed from the perspective of art. That's why I think most programmers have problems getting a grasp of it. The reasons are mainly historical, but fortunately people are paying more attention to more rational approaches to design (Tufte, Krug).
To me it seems the author is trying to overreach the scope of UX (when it's already huge) with vague ideas of where it should head.
Regarding #1: for some reason this is exaggerated in UX and especially IA fields.
I unsubscribed from IA mailing lists because most of the traffic there was argument what IA is and what it is not.
I think that's the spirit of the post, that building persuasive systems is moving/has moved into the real world in a principled way.
Disclaimer: I work with the author, and it's suprised me how much of a 'science' it really is (hypotheses can be tested, and the results can be measured and improved)
In my experience, the best designers bristle at the notion that they "just get on with it". They consider being learned in design a great badge of honor, as important as their innate sense of style. To them, the worst design transgression is harboring any strong artistic opinion without being well-read, theory included.
Loosely related thought: My favorite magic vs. method treatise is Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition". How seriously he hoped to be taken and how ingenuous his motivations are fun to debate, but I love the piece.
Two great research oriented books on the topic of persuasion and behavior modification are "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" and "White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts". Highly recommend them for people looking for more than opinions over overviews.
I would give anything to get access to an fMRI and show participants these 'examples of persuasive design' while they are hooked up to it.
Much of the literature on persuasive design suggests that the persuasion happens in the cerebral cortex. Neuroscience has shown that persuasion happens a whole lot deeper, in some very primitive parts of our brains. I'd love to see how brains 'light up' when they're confronted with some of these designs!
If anyone has any resources on fMRI research into persuasive design, I'd be the happiest geek alive.
There's an interesting book called "Buyology" which was written by Martin Lindstrom, one of the big proponents of neuromarketing. Definitely worth a read or two!
In the last hybrid I got a ride in, if you were drawing too heavily on the gas engine, the console backlighting would go from a soothing bluish-green to an angry red. Rather dramatic feedback, but I could feel myself responding to it - and I was a passenger.
There's a particular hybrid car out there that actually does have that if you drive outside of "environmentally sound" parameters... i.e. too hard of accelerations or high speeds. The idea is to encourage driving in such a way that maximizes your mileage, thus making the trees happy.
The first image that would come to my mind is the leaves swirling in my wake as I press the pedal to the floor around a fun corner (observing all proper speed limits and common sense, of course).
It seems that some designs are justified by people seeing a design they like, rationalizing it after the fact, and applying their rationalization in a way that is too general, without considering other ways the design could be interpreted.
Another example of this in action is the little fly or bee that you see on some urinals. This design element persuades its users to take a desirable action; in this case, to pee more accurately.
On the blackberry browser, their "subscribe" and "popular" boxes float over the text and won't go away. This persuaded me to hit the back button.
Too bad, since I changed the design of my registration page recently and increased sign-ups. I'm eager to learn more but will have to wait 'til I'm at my desk.
I find it so hard to relate to HCI and UX as fields. I mean, do real designers creating great products actually subscribe to this theorising or do they just get on with it? I'm probably completely naive about all of this, but from the outside it looks like a lot of talking and a lack of doing.