Studying captology to change behavior

By William Seidman Even very large, global organizations can change the behavior of their employees and sustain that change across the entire enterprise with the help of persuasive technologies. Persuasive technology, or captology, means using computing products to change what people believe and what they do. Stanford University has an entire lab devoted to studying how computing products such as websites and mobile phones can be designed to achieve this. According to the Stanford University Persuasive Tech Lab, “We believe that much like human persuaders, persuasive technologies can bring about positive changes in many domains, including health, business, safety, and education.” The lab is currently studying the best designs for changing human behavior, looking at how mobile phones can be vehicles for persuasion, and examining the tremendous persuasive power of Facebook and other social media. It’s a fascinating field of study;  the findings will be very interesting.  ]]>