733 new employees of a health company used a single opt-in process to subscribe to a retirement plan. Results were compared to a multi-step phone process used with 455 and 407  employees from the two previous years.

Participation rates were 5% after one month and 8% after three months. With the new process, they rose to 19% and 35% respectively.

Perform a friction audit.

Identify all the hurdles and delays your user may feel while using your product and attempt to minimise them. How many barriers to a near-effortless user experience can you find?

Adding friction can help people from making mistakes.

Add barriers to counter System 1 mode, prompting users for conscious reflection to validate important information (e.g. monetary transactions). What strategic friction can you create?

Add friction to make waiting times feel shorter.

Houston airport reduced the number of luggage waiting times complaints by moving the luggage area further away so that passengers spent more time walking and less time waiting.

Remove friction but highlight effort.

Our willingness to pay for something increases by knowing how much work is done for us. We pay more for a cup of coffee if we see the barista working on it for several minutes.

58 households in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had their fruit and veg shopping monitored for 8 weeks. Half were offered a 50% discount reward on all fruit and veg purchased and half were not.

Results showed that the reward increased healthy food purchasing behavior from 6.4 to 16.7 servings of fruit and veg  on average per week per household.

Rewards come in two types: Extrinsic and Intrinsic. 

‍Extrinsic rewards are economic: pay, discounts, working conditions, gold stars, healthcare, promotions etc. 

Intrinsic rewards are emotional, coming from a sense of achievement through skill and hard work, unplanned verbal praise from authority figures, and peer recognition.

Too much extrinsic will lessen internal motivation as it’s seen as controlling, especially if they’re later removed (Murayama et al., 2010). Ensure that they’re significant enough to motivate against task boredom (Hidi, 2015) and are in line with the market needs of employees / customers.

Focus on rewarding intrinsically - seen as a superior reward (Deci et al., 1999) - with greater levels of trust, choice and freedom to make one’s own decisions. You’ll be rewarded with a more motivated, loyal following as a result.

195 students were asked to fill out a lunch order survey in return for a free lunch. They were split into two groups and  asked either a few hours prior to or just before lunchtime.

Those asked with the delay made food choices 11% lower in calories than those just before lunch.

Adapt with time-to-delivery.

Online grocers could change what’s shown to the user based on how many days out their delivery slot is, showing more aspirational goods in the week prior and impulsive goods the day before. 

Build around customers’ goals.

Have them make a preference on your site for their future self i.e. that they want to lose weight or save more money this year. Then, have this preference dictate what products are shown to them online, along with a subtle reminder that you’re helping with their bigger goals.

Encourage “future lock-ins.”

‍Banks could improve consumer savings by allowing pre-registration for a future savings account. Consider locking in other types of ‘should’ decisions that will benefit the consumer’s future well-being, as well as reducing your costs through better demand forecasting.