How Digital Nudges work
A Digital Nudge is a product design pattern that does one thing well: it enables actions that are high in value for both the user and the business.
Consider this example from Facebook Marketplace
The small "Nearby" label on product listings is a subtle but effective digital nudge. When considering online purchases, users often weigh the potential value of an item against the inconvenience of acquiring it. For physical goods, proximity plays a significant role in this decision-making process. By highlighting nearby items, this nudge counters the indecisiveness and friction associated with leaving home, encouraging users to take action. If a user decides to leave home to buy an item because of the ‘Nearby’ tag on the item, the user has been digitally nudged!
Digital Nudges work by combining technology and psychology.
Digital Nudges leverage insights into human behavior to create subtle design patterns within digital environments. This architecture allows influencing and changing user behavior, both within the product and in the real world, without restricting choices in desirable ways . Often, by scrutinising and optimising a nudge, product teams can gain critical insights into the broader product strategy itself.
While digital nudges might initially appear as superficial design elements, they often represent the deep undercurrents of a product's strategy. In fact, a nudge can be seen as a microcosm - a UX manifestation - of the overall product strategy, reflecting and delivering the value the product provides to users.
A Digital Nudge can be embedded within…
a piece of Copy
a Notification
a UI element
a Feature
… and often within a hybrid of the above.
Are Digital Nudges manipulative?
While nudges can be used as a form of coercive persuasion - so called “dark patterns” - they are not inherently manipulative. When applied correctly, nudges can provide significant benefits to users. In today's digital landscape, individuals often face an overwhelming amount of information when searching for, considering, using, and purchasing products. This cognitive environment can be quite constraining, as people must make critical decisions and perform the right actions—putting in the necessary effort—for the best results.To navigate this complexity, humans leverage inherent psychological mechanisms - mental shortcuts - that allow them to navigate the overwhelming sea of information. Expecting users to evaluate every option in full detail and put in the effort required to make perfectly rational choices is not only arduous but often impossible in such environments. Well-designed nudges can help users by leveraging their inherent psychological mechanisms, guiding them through the decision-making process and enabling the right actions for optimal outcomes.
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How can product teams benefit from applying Digital Nudges?
The considered and methodical application of digital nudges into products can have multiple beneficial impacts:
They can enable positive, beneficial, desirable behavior change in users and limit or reduce harmful behavior.
Digital Nudges thinking is based in cognitive and social psychology, and so can help design for the functional, emotional and social needs of the user.
They act as growth levers, moving the user into and through growth funnels and flywheels.
They can be built directly to impact key engagement metrics and KPIs in the product’s analytics framework.
Digital Nudge thinking helps develop hypotheses for experimental UX variants based on behavioral science principles.
Digital Nudge thinking helps build rationale for feature prioritisation decisions.
Digital Nudge thinking can help product owners, managers and designers navigate complex and difficult feature tradeoffs in ongoing product development.
Digital Nudge thinking helps teams assign value to specific features and measure the ROI on them in terms of user engagement and growth.
Digital Nudges help build things that people will actually use, cherish, value and share.