Designing persuasive worlds in digital experiences feat. Aristotle, PUBG, Air BnB and Cure.Fit
Exploring application of Ethos — Pathos — Logos in designing worlds in interactive experiences that draw you in, keep you there and you love it!
A common yet critical challenge in designing interactive experiences — for instance in screenwriting, UX/UI of consumer software and digital gaming — is that of designing a world into which the audience readily buys in.
What are worlds and why are they important?
Worlds are the setting of a story — often a real world place or a fictional place. And yes, if you really want to stretch this into a philosophical nebula, then even your mind can be the world. However, for sake of simplicity, let’s limit ourselves to examples of geographical settings. The definition of these worlds could range from —
- a more simplistic (but effective, before you think I am dissing it) and perpetually doomed skyline of Manhattan, New York in Avengers. This has less features — enough for them to go through the basic change of ‘Hello-look-at-me-I-am-so-bright-and-modern’ to ‘oh-no-gone’ after Gods and Aliens arrive without immigration clearance.
- a more specific and immersive subculture such as the underground hip-hop scene in Gully Boy. This has more features than a monolithic Bombay skyline-for example it shows the parts of the city where rebels express their anguish through graffiti on walls, the unused warehouses where gully rap battles happen, and yes the nightlife and the stars and the skyline. For the more curious, this is an excellent read.
- A highly detailed and dynamic terrain of PUBG games, where not only there are a number of features in the world, but you can also interact with those features to progress on your storyline.
What happens when persuasive worlds are successfully designed into interactive services?
- Better acquisition : Interactive products often try to make a pitch to consumers — persuading them to try out their product. In case of products where the world of the product — its users/customers, the ambience of its experience — is a factor, designing persuasion can help boost adoption.
- Better engagement : A well-designed world is a great way to keep the audience invested in your story and keep engagement levels high. Persuasion is not one time. The reason why someone tries your product, might not be the same reason they stay.
- Better referrals and word of mouth : More persuasive worlds influence the customer’s social network. For instance if you are on Slack, and its world benefits you, you will persuade others to join.
So how might we design more persuasive worlds?
Designing persuasion with Ethos-Pathos-Logos
About speaking in public, Aristotle claimed that persuasion relies on the character of the speaker (credibility/ethos), the emotional state of the hearer (pathos), and in the argument (logos) itself. Although then Aristotle’s principles only addressed how to effectively speak in public, today they also ring true when communicating by other means: writing, photographing, painting, or even designing for the web.
And thus I set out to figure out the design of persuasive worlds, with the spirit of Aristotle by my side.
Persuasive world building in software experiences :
Worlds becomes more important in situations where the success of your experience depends on more than one type of interaction. This is especially true for businesses which try to engage the customer over multiple interactions. Let’s take some popular examples to see how this plays out in real-world business:
Illustration #1 — Cure.fit
Ambitious initiative that aims to be a one-stop place for general health, fitness and well-being. By offering you simple monthly subscriptions, they give you easy access to group workouts, guided meditation and even routine checkups. You can do these by actually going to their local spaces, or even by being virtually guided by their app. And, these guys are bffs made in heaven for insurance companies.
Ethos
Fitness outcomes have a lot to do with discipline and integrity in your schedule. Cure.fit’s experience is built on good habits — daily routines that you can put in your calendar.
Pathos
Now daily routines sounds easy-peasy, but doing them is hard. Working out needs working it out. People are constantly in states of vulnerability — about being conscious of their bodies, about the guilt of not being regular enough and the failure of their bodies to cash cheques which their minds are writing.
Cult.fit builds its world with great empathy by creating a safe-space for failure while creating motivation. By recognising that your fitness and health is ‘work-in-progress’, it addresses the mental state of not being too hard on yourself.
Logos
Cure.fit takes a lot of care to communicate the logic of fitness and the logical validity of their programs. They mention calories on all their food activities so they make a strong appeal the logic. Everyone likes data.
Illustration #2 — PUBG
Unlike film and service-related mobile apps, FPS games allow players to create their own story. In such cases, world building becomes even more critical, because intentional design of each and every detail of the world can help you strategise how you navigate across the terrain.
Ethos in PUBG
Ethic — Good strategy wins. PUBG couldn’t have been more perfect in basing their gameplay on the ‘survivor-island’ narrative. The game rewards strategies which outsmart others. Right from start to finish, the topography enables you to try out their own plans and persuade everyone else to align to yours. The world is designed to help you explain why a run that you want to make makes sense, or doesn’t. This is what Dave Curd, World Art Director, has to say about the creation of this value in PUBG maps —
“One of the big challenges of designing a battle royale map is that players can approach from any direction, including landing right in the middle of it,” says Curd. “So we use areas like small islands and long bridges to create bottlenecks and chokepoints, and to intentionally encourage certain types of gameplay. In those small areas, we have a very good idea how people will interact. It’s kind of fun for players to camp a bridge, to feel smart, to feel like highwaymen.”
Pathos in PUBG
A battleground is where decisions need to be razor sharp. Your success is not just yours if you have teams. In the middle of all this where you are already feeling the scarcity, read this quote from Curd on how they can always instigate players to feel courageous and go for a dash —
“Whether that’s your typical crate or barrel pile, an old flipped over truck, a long wall or a small shack, you’d be surprised how much you can influence the player with both smart loot placement and cover placement at sprintable distances. Players can do that risk-reward calculation of, ‘OK, I’m going to be exposed for a few seconds, but then I’m going to have access to five new buildings, and buildings are the prize because they have loot, but more importantly they have windows I can sight from.’
Logos in PUBG
The maps are accurate and extremely well-detailed. The topography allows you to plan your moves and feel a sense of control on your strategy. The battle grounds create multiple entry and exit points, which allow someone to engage as well as flee if that’s part of their strategy. Topography helped achieve that. Sometimes destinations are uphill (Asylum), in the middle of a dense forest (The Hind Clearing), or require crossing flat, exposed terrain (Cargo).
Applying Ethos-Pathos-Logos? A (humble) hypothetical design exploration for AirbnB Experiences in India.
I love the way this company nurtures design. I love that they empower other creators by opening up their craft to the community, only for AirBnB customers, but also creators like them. And I love that I have lived in this generation to see such a beautiful combination of community design, data and software that helps unlock the energy of cities. I wish I could wake up to them every…okay that’s a bit much. But you get it.
One thing that I also cannot help but feel excited about is explosive potential of India’s culture and tourism. There is no limit to the interesting experiences that you can get lost in. This insane diversity of India can only be tapped by involving the community, and using their resources, values and creativity. It would be so exciting if creative Indians stepped forward and created experiences in the city they know and love.
Background
I’ve read how AirBnB, is trying to serve the India market. Having had initial troubles, has now kickstarted its intentions into 17th gear by making a big investment ($200m?) in Oyo Rooms.
Now here is what gets really interesting. Choosing where to stay if you are going to a new city, is a choice which affects and gets affected by many other variables. AirBnB’s strategy shows their focus on AirBnb’s Plus — a category of highly rated AirBnB homes which are verified.
So here’s an exploration of how persuasive world-building design can be relevant to AirBnb’s India services, focussed around AirBnB Plus homes.
Foundations
Before we start detailing it out — a useful reminder that this is not an exercise in product design itself, but rather just an exercise to design the world in which the core functionality happens — that is of finding and booking homes.
These are some world elements for AirBnB Experiences (not exhaustive at all)
So, now for applying EPL, we just select a world element and play!
Designing Ethos (Making an appeal to ethics)
Ethos is about having (minimum) values and then keeping them consistent.
In our travels, we love it when we interact with anything that tells us a distinct story of that place. An ethic that the traveler always values is the authenticity of the experience.
Designing for authenticity
The world element we will take are the hosts of AirBnB Experiences. Around them, we utilise an AirBnB feature — Superhosts.
Experience Superhosts might be surfaces to the audience using the landing page of experiences, or through promotional campaign on social media channels. By designing a series of images and videos where superhosts are empowered to tell their own stories, of how they got inspired to start this experience and how do they keep it going.
In these stories, the hosts are positioned as insightful curators and guides of the city which establishes their credibility and as an extension the credibility of the world of AirBnB Experiences. The Superhost badge emphasises the credibility of the service.
Designing Pathos (Making an appeal to emotions)
The world element that we will choose here is the geography itself—sights and sounds of the city where the experience is set.
People are looking for excitement when they book an experience. The pathos that we will choose is the wonder of connecting with a diverse culture.
Designing for wonder
AirBnB experiences unlock the city’s stories. And with it, they unlock a traveler’s own sense of wonder.
To show this, we will use pictures which use a series of visuals and images which are sensory i.e. which engage one or more of your five senses —sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Each of the visuals will focus on one sense and be supported by other senses.
This can also be converted into a content guide which can be useful for experience hosts to present their experience on the AirBnB website/app.
Imagine visiting a garden with hundreds of flowers.
Imagine sitting in an intimate space with your loved one while three musicians serenade you.
Imagine amazing Indian food. Enough said.
Designing Logos (Making an appeal to logic)
The logos that we are going to proposos is validation. The world element we are going to use is — other travellers.
The element we will use here is (***drumroll***) reviews! Not an ingenious new idea, but hey, after all, if other travellers have appreciated the same experience, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t go right for you, right? Right. Simple. Simple works.
A built-in benefit of delivering an AirBnB Experience is the intimate connect between an Experience host and the traveler. This makes it easier to prompt and influence the user to give a review.
Some other good resources I found on the application of ethos-pathos-logos in experience design
Have you found any resources which could be of help? What are the techniques and models you think of when you think of designing worlds? I would love to know your thoughts/suggestions/critique.
