Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[Aaron Wolf]

On 05/05/2016 09:43 AM, mray wrote:
> 
> 
> On 02.05.2016 22:27, Michael Siepmann wrote:
>> This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one can
>> change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs. no) to
>> "how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the above). 
>> Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging without
>> making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of course it
>> would be good to include an option to receive occasional communications
>> as a result of the one-time donation, but important for that to be
>> opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe anytime.  And it's
>> certainly good to avoid making people feel at all pressured or
>> manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for autonomy and trigger
>> psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to avoid doing what you
>> feel pressured to do, even if you might have chosen to do it on your own
>> if you hadn't felt that someone was pressuring you).
>>
> 
> I also see some potential in letting people wiggle with their binary
> choice to be a patron and automatically un-patron after a certain amount
> of time. When they feel good about it they can start letting the switch
> in a permanent on or off.
> Ideally though, my hope would be that people don't need it and get how
> snowdrift works from day 1.
> 

Sure, but just to be clear: the idea isn't that this relates to people
knowing how snowdrift works or not. They could understand completely how
it works, and this option is still relevant. Just psychologically, the
presence of the one-time option makes people more comfortable with going
ahead with the sustaining pledge.

In decision science, a similar example is:

Choose product A for $50, product B for $80, or both products for $80.
With only the choice between A and both, many people choose A to save
money. When you add the stupid decision of B alone for the same price as
both, zero people choose that stupid option, but it makes far more
people choose to buy both. The presence of a stupid option makes the
more-expensive non-stupid option look like a good deal, so people go
with it.

The one-time vs sustaining option isn't a manipulative as that and has
some legitimacy existing, but the idea is precisely that the presence of
the choice gets more people to choose the one option we want them to
choose anyway.

I do think this was clear before, and I don't assume anyone totally
missed this, but I just wanted to reiterate since I wasn't certain.

>> I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for
>> fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a lot
>> of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm only an
>> occasional user of what that project produces but would like to support
>> it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I use heavily
>> and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or has plenty but
>> I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to be a double or
>> triple patron, etc.
> 
> I'm against fractional/multiple patronage if our goal is to rely on the
> network effect. It would be adding a lever to the patrons input that is
> supposed to be the network effects job. We would give people the freedom
> to de-couple themselves from the network effect by the amount their choice.
> My impression is that we need to focus on having a simple logic that
> makes clear "we are all in this together" with a clear set of actions
> and consequences.
> 
> Cheers,
> Robert
> 
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> Michael Siepmann, Ph.D.
>> *The Tech Design Psychologist*™
>> /Shaping technology to help people flourish/™
>> 303-835-0501   TechDesignPsych.com
>>    OpenPGP: 6D65A4F7
>> 
>>  
>>
>> On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>>> So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
>>> interesting bit:
>>>
>>> This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as ongoing
>>> members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
>>> traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop model
>>> yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only donation" in
>>> what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
>>> sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice results
>>> in *more* people becoming sustaining members!
>>>
>>> In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
>>> sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
>>> feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
>>> members after all.
>>>
>>> So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in choice
>>> to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd set
>>> it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. 

Re: [Snowdrift-discuss] An opt-in we don't prefer could help Snowdrift design , ,

[mray]

On 02.05.2016 22:27, Michael Siepmann wrote:
> This makes sense to me.  Offering a few options rather than just one can
> change people's decision frame from "shall I do this?" (yes vs. no) to
> "how shall I do this?" (option 1 vs. option 2. vs none of the above). 
> Offering a one-time option can allow people to try engaging without
> making more of a commitment than they feel ready for.  Of course it
> would be good to include an option to receive occasional communications
> as a result of the one-time donation, but important for that to be
> opt-in with a clear promise that you can unsubscribe anytime.  And it's
> certainly good to avoid making people feel at all pressured or
> manipulated, which can threaten peoples' need for autonomy and trigger
> psychological reactance (i.e. the motivation to avoid doing what you
> feel pressured to do, even if you might have chosen to do it on your own
> if you hadn't felt that someone was pressuring you).
> 

I also see some potential in letting people wiggle with their binary
choice to be a patron and automatically un-patron after a certain amount
of time. When they feel good about it they can start letting the switch
in a permanent on or off.
Ideally though, my hope would be that people don't need it and get how
snowdrift works from day 1.

> I also think it may be helpful or even important to offer options for
> fractional and multiple patronage.  For example, if a project has a lot
> of a patrons so the monthly amount per patron is high, and I'm only an
> occasional user of what that project produces but would like to support
> it, I could opt to be 1/4 of a patron.  Or if a project I use heavily
> and care a lot about doesn't yet have so many patrons, or has plenty but
> I still want to give it extra support, I could opt to be a double or
> triple patron, etc.

I'm against fractional/multiple patronage if our goal is to rely on the
network effect. It would be adding a lever to the patrons input that is
supposed to be the network effects job. We would give people the freedom
to de-couple themselves from the network effect by the amount their choice.
My impression is that we need to focus on having a simple logic that
makes clear "we are all in this together" with a clear set of actions
and consequences.

Cheers,
Robert

> 
> Best,
> 
> Michael
> 
> Michael Siepmann, Ph.D.
> *The Tech Design Psychologist*™
> /Shaping technology to help people flourish/™
> 303-835-0501   TechDesignPsych.com
>    OpenPGP: 6D65A4F7
> 
>  
> 
> On 05/01/2016 10:11 PM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> So, I learned from in research in traditional fundraising this
>> interesting bit:
>>
>> This pertains to fundraisers wanting to get people to sign up as ongoing
>> members where they donate monthly or annually (no matching in these
>> traditional cases, of course — nobody has built the Snowdrift.coop model
>> yet). If they include an opt-in checkbox for "one-time only donation" in
>> what would otherwise assume that everyone signing up is going to be a
>> sustaining member… then the mere presence of that opt-in choice results
>> in *more* people becoming sustaining members!
>>
>> In other words, when people feel they aren't forced into being
>> sustaining donors but have a choice to do one-time-only, they end up
>> feeling more comfortable with going ahead and becoming sustaining
>> members after all.
>>
>> So, we could use this idea in our design. We'd provide an opt-in choice
>> to participate only once for just the next month's pay period. We'd set
>> it up so that we don't encourage people to choose that. But maybe this
>> would end up helping more people accept the normal sustaining pledge
>> that we want everyone to go with…
>>
>> Incidentally, besides hearing thoughts from others, I'm not clear in our
>> new project management where is the best place to write down this idea
>> so that it gets discussed and can then be something our research and
>> design folks can consider and test…
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aaron
>>
>>
>>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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