The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People

Use social psychology to design engaging digital experiences

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Use social psychology to design engaging digital experiences

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The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People

Maker

In before Xmas! :) TLDR; I wrote a book! It'll help you design more meaningful and influential digital experiences. Use discount code 'merryxmasph' at the Gumroad checkout to get 40% off. Full backstory: My wife and I have been collaborating on this book for a good part of the year. She's interested in cognitive psychology (even though she's an aspiring accountant! Go figure) and I'm passionate about product design. After seeing a lot of overlap between the stuff that she was studying and my own experiences with web/mobile design and prototyping (I have two years of experience with startups, including my own one, and rapidly prototyping enterprise apps for another two years), we decided to band together and work on a project. The book essentially combines the principles of social psychology and persuasion that was written about by Dr. Robert Cialdini in the 70s in his amazing book, Influence. He then revised it in 2006 with an acknowledgement of how much technology has changed, making social psychology even more important in commanding the attention of the modern distracted user. We saw a gap where Cialdini left off and decided to write about how those principles of persuasion have actually been used successfully (and not so successfully) by modern digital companies, big and small, familiar and obscure. We go over more than 70 examples of how such principles have been used to create products that influence people to use them. We plan on updating it with more examples going forward. It was the first time for both of us to do anything like it, and after many months of writing and re-writing, we're ready to release it to the world. And since it's that special time of year, we'd love to make it available to you for 40% off. Just use the discount code: 'merryxmasph' at checkout. You'll get all updates for free, which will eventually include the .mobi and .epub editions, too. Also, if you're not ready to purchase, we still invite you to download the sample and/or sign up for the free email series that will give you a smattering of what you can expect with the book. We hope you enjoy it!

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11yr ago

@alirtariq sounds really interesting. I'll definitely give the book a try. :)

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11yr ago

The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People

Maker

@akshaybharwani @alirtariq awesome! The best way to dip in might be to sign up for the free 7-email course. And do reach out whenever you have any qualms or concerns with how you're finding the content. I'd like to think of the book as a living document - we're always looking for ways to improve it. :)

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11yr ago

Master Sublime Text 3

Congrats @alirtariq! I've read the book and I must say that it was a great complement to Cialdini's work. You can read Cialdini and understand his concepts, but it can be a bit difficult to understand how to place those principles within a product. However your book does a great job of merging the scientific research with practical examples to really bring some enlightenment to it all. I would have no problem recommending this book to anyone that asks.

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11yr ago

The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People

Maker

Thanks for the positive feedback and continued support, @scrivs! Glad you found it useful. And even though being familiar with Cialdini's works would make the lessons in this book that much more relevant, I hope the book is friendly enough for newcomers, too.

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11yr ago

Hey @alirtariq great to see this posted on Product Hunt. What I loved about the book was that it was written for the layman without the overly simplifying the concepts. Loved the examples and how they weave the story together. Great work, looking forward to see'ing more of your writing :)

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11yr ago

The Design of Influence: How to Craft Products that Move People

Maker

Thanks, @kamilrextin! It was tricky finding a balance between how detailed to get and how friendly to newcomers it should be. I don't know if we've found that balance but your words are encouraging! One thing's for sure, though - this book won't turn a junior designer into an expert. It will, hopefully, however make the junior product designer/maker more considerate of deliberate design decisions.

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11yr ago