How feedback can influence our actions
by Adriana Olmos
Providing informative feedback is a key principle in the design of human-computer interfaces. The human–computer interface can be described as the point of communication between the human user and the computer, and feedback is the series of steps that evaluate, moderate, and confirm processes as they pass through the interface from the human to the computer and back.
The following two images show two different bank cash machines. Both are at the point of determining whether or not a receipt should be printed at the end of the transaction. The first approach asks the user at the beginning of the transaction whether a receipt should be printed or not; at this point the user is likely to reply "yes", because he would like to know the outcome of the transaction he is about to execute.
The second approach was designed within the context of use, letting the user execute the transaction first, before displaying the results of the transaction and asking if the printed version is needed. At this moment the desired information has been conveyed to the user and he is less likely to request the printed receipt – the appropriate feedback has been provided.
The small receipts that are printed only to be thrown into the bin do not amount to the biggest environmental issue of today. However, considering the millions of transactions done at the cash machines everyday, a significant amount of paper is wasted unnecessarily due to lack of proper contextual feedback. At a time when there is increasing effort to design things with less of a negative impact on our environment, we also have to consider design options that positively influence user behaviour and result in less pollution.
These cash machine interfaces are just one example where a seemingly small design difference actually has a major impact on the user’s decision. What other design cases have you observed today that might influence our behaviour in a positive way?
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