Evaluating the Effectiveness of Persuasive Design Cards for Novice Users

Abstract

Physical card-based design tools have been around for a long time and have been used widely, and numerous card-sets have been developed to facilitate different design activities. The main advantage of design cards is that they work as intermediate-level knowledge to communicate research insights and design process. Therefore, there have been many efforts to introduce different set of cards to serve as intermediate-level knowledge that bridge between theories and practice, one example of these sets is persuasive cards based on different persuasive theories. However, there is not enough research into how such a tool can give and take from users.

This paper examines the effectiveness of persuasive cards for novice users. Through experimental study the researcher found that the tools you use affect the kind of outcome that you will get. The insights from four workshop sessions indicate that persuasive cards can be two-edged sword, as they can affect the design process both positively and negatively. The most important advantages witnessed were how the cards boosted the communication between the team and kept the conversation flowing. While the commonality effect on the generated persuasive ideas was one of the most noticeable drawbacks.