Brian, I think the danger is demotivating people who have either a lot of weight to lose or unrealistic expectations. Percentages may seem more discouraging than encouraging. And the fact that you made no progress toward your ultimate goal this week or today doesn't mean you haven't already made significant progress. Percentages don't capture any of this well.
I may be bone thin and focused on losing 12 pounds, which might take me 12 weeks or more. A big guy with more weight to lose could lose that 12 pounds in 2 weeks. If I gain a pound this week, are you going to put my percentages backward? I'd quit, or lie. Take a cue from exercise equipment (usually very poorly designed) or coaches. They repeatedly emphasize what you've accomplished: 2 miles ticking up! 6 to go! Only 20 minutes until your next reward. Generally people do want to know what you're offering in order to gauge whether it's worth sticking around to the next level. A water bottle or a gym bag? Thanks, but I'll take my reward and quit. A trip to Paris: I'll keep running. When I've designed sweepstakes and rewards for online systems, we were often surprised at which rewards were hits and which weren't. It is good to space them irregularly; the surprise/unpredictability factor may be a good motivator. But as Adrian notes above, people don't do things strictly for the reward either, unless it's a really big prize; there are all kinds of social factors like belonging to a community or feeling a sense of accomplishment that play strongly into how this is designed and what feedback you provide. Look at the levels on most community boards: some people will answer a lot of questions for free to be labeled gurus. Might be a good Q for the Freakanomics blog on the NYTimes website :) Diana On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 3:13 AM, Brian Mila<brian.m...@trizetto.com> wrote: > Thanks for the responses, but I think I didn't explain it very well. > What I have is a weight loss web service. The user can set goals, say > 20 lbs, and that goal can then be broken up into milestones, say every > 5 lbs. So in this case, the user has a 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% > milestone every 5 lbs. With each milestone they reach, they get > rewarded with cash or points or other incentives. > > >From a usability perspective, the current next milestone and its > reward is the only one the user really needs to know. So if the user > has already lost 6 lbs, the next milestone is 50% and its reward > could be a $10 gift card. They don't need to know the 75% or 100% > rewards because that info isnt relevant yet (progressive disclosure). > > What I'm asking is, from a persuasion perspective, would showing all > the milestones and rewards (instead of just the next current > milestone) produce a higher goal completion percentage? Some research > I've found seems to suggest it could. I'm referring to the endowed > progress effect, but that only states that by giving the person a > "head-start" they would be more likely to finish. I think this > technique could also be applied, but it still doesn't answer my > question. Can anyone point me in the right direction for some > research that would either prove or disprove this theory? (Anecdotal > answers are also welcome, but they might be less effective when I > present it to upper management ;) > > > Thanks, > Brian > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44855 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
