Digital Nudging

Digital nudging is the use of user-interface design elements to guide people’s behavior in digital choice environments. Digital choice environments are user interfaces – such as web-based forms and ERP screens – that require people to make judgments or decisions. Humans face choices every day, but the outcome of any choice is influenced not only by rational deliberations of the available options but also by the design of the choice environment in which information is presented, which can exert a subconscious influence on the outcome. In other words, ‘‘what is chosen often depends upon how the choice is presented’’ (Johnson et al. 2012, p. 488) such that the ‘‘choice architecture alters people’s behavior in a predictable way’’ (Thaler and Sunstein 2008, p. 6). Even simple modifications of the choice environment in which options are presented can influence people’s choices and ‘‘nudge’’ them into behaving in particular ways. In fact, there is no neutral way to present choices. For example, Johnson and Goldstein (2003) showed that simply changing default options (from opt-in to opt-out) in the context of organ donation nearly doubled the percentage of people who consent to being organ donors. Many choices are made in online environments. As the design of digital choice environments always (either deliberately or accidentally) influences people’s choices, understanding the effects of digital nudges in these environments can help designers lead users to the most desirable choice. For example, the mobile payment app Square nudges people into giving tips by setting the default to ‘‘tipping’’ so that customers must actively select a ‘‘no tipping’’ option if they choose not to give a tip. Using this simple nudge has raised tip amounts, especially where little or no tipping has been common (Carr 2013). These examples show that simply changing the default option affects the outcome.