Stanford Seminar -The "Embedded Design" Approach to Creating Persuasive Tech & Immersive Experiences

Embedded Design Framework: A 10-Year Retrospective

Key Concepts:

• Embedded Design: A framework for designing persuasive experiences that subtly integrate persuasive content to avoid being overly explicit or forceful.
• Intermixing: Integrating off-topic content into a persuasive experience to make the topic more approachable and accessible.
• Obfuscating: Concealing or being stealthy in introducing the persuasive goal or content.
• Distancing: Creating psychological distance between the player and the game's world, topics, or content representation.
• Reactance: A defensive psychological response triggered when individuals feel their sense of agency or free will is being threatened.
• Transformational Framework: A framework for articulating persuasive or transformational goals.
• Magic Circle: The concept that entering a game world allows for acceptance of new perspectives and ideas due to the altered reality within the game.
• Misattribution of Arousal: A psychological phenomenon where individuals attribute their anxiety to an external source (e.g., a horror theme) rather than their own beliefs or anxieties about the topic.

Introduction

The talk presents a 10-year retrospective on the Embedded Design Framework, a framework developed to design impactful persuasive experiences, primarily in game design, but also applicable to non-game contexts. The framework addresses the challenge of balancing engagement and persuasive impact, especially when dealing with sensitive topics like bias and marginalization.

The Problem with Explicit Persuasion

Explicit approaches to persuasion can be counterproductive due to:

• Reactance: Overt attempts to persuade can trigger a defensive response, even if the individual agrees with the position. Example: Forcefully written anti-vandalism signs can increase vandalism.
• Disruption of Enjoyment: Obvious persuasive goals can reduce enjoyment and immersion in games. Example: Telling children a game is educational can make them expect it to be less fun.
• Disruption of Persuasive Mechanisms: Overthinking the persuasive mechanism can disrupt its effectiveness. Some psychological interventions work better when people are unaware of how they function.

The Embedded Design Approach

The Embedded Design approach offers strategies for designing persuasive experiences that are more subtle and less forceful, allowing for a more open-minded and receptive mindset. This is particularly important when dealing with sensitive topics or designing immersive experiences.

Strategy 1: Intermixing

Intermixing involves integrating off-topic content into a persuasive experience.

• Rationale:
  • Makes the persuasive goal less obvious.
  • Provides a mental or emotional break from heavier topics.
  • Makes the topic more approachable and accessible.
• Example: Awkward Moment: A card game designed to counteract gender stereotypes in STEM.
  • Initial versions focused solely on gender stereotypes, leading to player disengagement.
  • Intermixing off-topic "awkward moment" cards (e.g., embarrassing social situations) improved engagement and enjoyment.
  • Controlled experiments showed that the intermixed version was less likely to evoke reactance and more effective at reducing gender biases.
  • The intermixed version was more effective even with less exposure to the focal topic (gender bias).
• Example: 30-Day Adulting Challenge: An intervention to increase cybersecurity behaviors.
  • Initial version focused solely on cybersecurity challenges, leading to user disengagement.
  • Intermixing diverse challenges (e.g., doing laundry, cooking a meal) increased engagement and led to longer-term behavior change in cybersecurity.
• Example: Dumb Ways to Die: An app designed to reduce train-related accidents.
  • Uses intermixing by including only a small number of train safety-related interactions within a larger game experience.
  • This approach was successful in attracting a large user base and reducing train-related accidents.

Strategy 2: Obfuscating

Obfuscating involves concealing or being stealthy in introducing the persuasive goal or content.

• Rationale: Prevents users from being overly aware of the persuasive goal, at least initially.
• Methods:
  • Framing or presenting the experience in a neutral way.
  • Setting different expectations.
  • Using misdirection.
• Example: Buffalo: A card game where players name someone fitting a noun-adjective pair.
  • The game aims to encourage inclusive thinking about social categories.
  • The game worked better when players were not told beforehand that it was about stereotypes or bias.
  • Players who were aware of the stereotype focus were overly consumed by it, reducing enjoyment and impact.
  • The persuasive goal was obfuscated until after the game, with debriefing materials provided.
• Example: Delayed Revelation: Delaying the revelation of a potentially alienating aspect of a character until a psychological connection has formed.
  • Research showed that delaying the revelation of a character's sexual orientation or racial identity increased connection and reduced prejudice.
• Example: Monarch: A strategy board game where all playable characters are princesses.
  • Boys who played the game enjoyed it more and showed reductions in gender bias when the revelation that they were playing a princess was delayed.
• Example: Misdirection: Using elements that serve as red herrings to distract from the persuasive goal.
  • Example: Outbreak: A board game designed to increase scientific curiosity among marginalized students.
    • Used a horror theme to allow students to misattribute their anxiety about science to the game's scary elements.
    • The horror theme led to greater comfort with science and self-confidence.

Strategy 3: Distancing

Distancing involves creating psychological distance between the player and the game's world, topics, or content representation.

• Rationale: Provides a degree of safety to confront sensitive or uncomfortable topics.
• Methods:
  • Fictionalization.
  • Metaphors and symbols.
  • Hyperbole.
  • Humor.
• Connection to the Magic Circle: Games create an alternative reality where players are more receptive to new perspectives and ideas.
• Example: Black Plague Game: A game about public health using the Black Plague as a metaphor for modern healthcare issues.
• Example: Zombie Vaccination Game: A game about vaccination and disease spread using a zombie theme.
  • The zombie version was more immersive and effective at changing outcomes, including empathy toward people with infectious diseases.
• Example: Bloomwood Stories Block Party: A visual novel game where players advise community members on healthcare issues.
  • Players take on the role of a community manager, providing advice to non-player characters.
  • This distancing approach makes the game more accessible and empowering.
• Example: Fanfiction Therapy: Using fanfiction writing as a therapeutic tool for marginalized groups.
  • Individuals write autobiographical stories using characters from known fictional universes as proxies.
  • The distancing afforded by fanfiction allows for more comfortable expression of sensitive experiences.

Measuring Engagement and Fun

• Self-report scales (e.g., rating enjoyment on different dimensions).
• Measures of immersion and flow.
• Behavioral measures (e.g., whether players voluntarily play the game again).
• Implicit measures.
• Measuring specific emotions evoked by the game.
• Embedding measurement within the game itself (e.g., tracking cooperative choices in Monarch).

Conclusion

The Embedded Design Framework offers a valuable approach to designing persuasive experiences that are both engaging and impactful. By subtly integrating persuasive content and considering factors like reactance, engagement, and psychological distance, designers can create experiences that effectively promote positive change without being overly forceful or alienating. The framework emphasizes the importance of balancing engagement and impact, particularly when addressing sensitive topics.