David Somerville, strategy director, Fresh Egg Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk

1. Using Nudge theory
to achieve a
competitive edge with
your UX
David Somerville, Strategy Director

2. About me
Behavioural Sciences graduate
20 year career in marketing - I’ve been
creating and testing ‘nudges’ for years!
Strategy director for Fresh Egg

3. Some people we have helped with UX
nudges

4. What is Nudge theory?

5. Nudge is a concept in behavioural science,
political theory and economics which
proposes positive reinforcement and
indirect suggestions as ways to influence
the behaviour and decision making of
groups or individuals.

6. Nudge history
1995
James Wilk formulated the term
and associated principles
2008
Sunstein appointed
administrator of the
Office of Information
and Regulatory
Affairs
2011-2017
David Cameron and Barack
Obama use Nudge Theory to
advance domestic policy goals
2008
Richard Thaler and Cass
Sunstein’s published
book: Nudge: Improving
Decisions About Health,
Wealth and Happiness
2010
British Behavioural
Insights Team formed
at the Cabinet Office
Now more than 80
countries use
behavioural insights
and Nudge Theory

7. Nudge theory and
charities
Nudge theory is nothing new for the charity
sector – many charities have been using it for
years
The Behavioural Insights Team wrote a paper
titled ‘Applying behavioural insights to
charitable giving’ in 2013 (and updated this in
2015)

8. Understand Create Test
Three stages of using Nudge theory with UX

9. Stage 1: Understand

10. Understand:
Changing
Expectations
Create Test

11. Customer expectations
don’t stand still
Why?
Human genius
Human insatiability

13. The Open
University –
Live Chat

16. Understand:
Small change,
BIG impact
Create Test

18. 80% reduction
in ‘spillage’

25. UX impact

26. Stage 2: Create

27. Understand
Create
Nudges
Test

28. How do we make decisions?

29. System 1 vs System 2 Decision Making

30. When creating nudges,
look EAST…

31. EAST elements
✓ Harness the
power of defaults
✓ Reduce the
hassle factor
✓ Simplify
messages
✓ Prompt people
when they’re
most receptive
✓ Consider
immediate costs
and benefits
✓ Help people plan
their response to
events
✓ Use bold and
striking colours,
professional
imagery
✓ Consider using
financial reward
or other
incentives
✓ Show most
people perform
the desired
behaviour
✓ Use the power of
networks
✓ Encourage
people to make a
commitment to
others
Easy Attractive Social Timely

32. Weight Loss
Calorie
input:
FOOD
Calorie
output:
ACTIVITY
Tipping Scales Principle

33. 2 bottles = 1400
calories

34. Behavioural
change
PAIN
GAIN
Tipping Scales Principle

35. To influence change you therefore need to
understand customer needs and fears. What
will cause them pain and gain?

36. Example user need
categories…
Informational needs
donation spending, charity history
Functional needs
live chat, contact details
Accessibility needs
Screen readers, keyboard navigation

37. Some example user
fear categories…
Financial fears
tied-in to donations for years, money being spent
correctly
Choice fears
Right charity to support?

38. Brainstorm ideas that aim to meet user
needs, allay user fears, or ideally both

39. Plotting importance against effort
Low level need/fear
High resource
cost
Low resource
cost
High level need/fear

40. Open University Final
Enrolment Date Nudge

41. Sustrans: Positive Reinforcement

42. RSPB: Clear Signposting

43. Shelter: Social Proof

44. Stage 3: Test

45. Understand
Create
Nudges
Test your
nudges

46. Test your nudges
Test on your users
Split test
Minimum viable tests

47. Guardian: Minimum Viable Test

48. Hypothesis: Adding the users’
location (city) to the ‘find a
class’ button will increase clicks
to that button due to increased
relevance
The personalised variation
showed a 11.5% uplift
Les Mills: Local Personalisation Test

49. Koovs: Pricing Test
Hypothesis: Changing the
colour, size and location of the
product price on product
pages will make it easier for
users to identify, and therefore
more likely to buy
Winning variation (larger
pricing, same location and
colour) showed:
1. +4.7% increase in average
revenue-per-visitor
2. +10.8% increase in number of
transactions.

50. Vodafone: Signposting Test
Hypothesis: If the phone
category page contained
‘signposting’ to highlight the
preferred options then more
users would pick the
signposted option due to its
increased prominence
28% more clicks on the
signposted device

51. President Obama: Simplifying Processes

52. What have we learnt?

53. Nudging your way to UX success
Understand your
user’s needs and
fears, and your
business resource
limitations
Create ideas to
solve user needs
and fears – plot
these. Look for
solutions that
address high level
need/fear and have
low resource costs
Test your ideas and
refine them as you
learn what shifts
the needle

56. Useful resources
Guardian Science Weekly - Nudge theory: the
psychology and ethics of persuasion
O Behave podcast (Ogilvy Change)

57. FreshEggUK @FreshEgg freshegguk fresh-egg
www.freshegg.co.uk
Sharing the value of experience.

58. Psychology of
communications
- tools from the Behavioural Sciences
28 June 2018
London
#CCPsychComms

59. Visit the CharityComms website to
view slides from past events, see
what events we have coming up
and to check out what else we do:
www.charitycomms.org.uk