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everyone this is WP product talk uh the place for every week we interview an experienced WordPress product owner on
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strategies tips experiences failures and successes of running successful and
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thriving WordPress product businesses I am Matt Cromwell co-founder of givewp and senior director of customer
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experience at Stellar WP and I am Zach Katz founder of gravity kit and Trust a
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login and today's uh topic is product ux and the Allure and problems with
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deceptive patterns yeah and this is a great topic because I don't think it's talked enough
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about in WordPress even though we talk about it uh sometimes in relationship to a couple plug-in businesses um but we
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deal with deceptive patterns all day and they're so tempting to implement but uh there's a conversation to be had there
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and we're going to have that today yeah absolutely and to talk about this one we brought on a special guest pich ner
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thanks for being here cutter mid drink perfect that was great timing well at least I'm hydrated we know as much now
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thank you so much for having me it's a real pleasure to be here thank you thank you absolutely can you tell the world
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just a little bit about who you are and what you do and and why you're here why did we bring you on so I am a ux and UI
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designer I do both and that's that's another conversation maybe for another day H and I am committed to creating the
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best possible experiences online for users as well as businesses because it's really important to understand that that
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really the ux involves the business as well so businesses need to do well so
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that they can help the customers better that's kind of what I'm focused on and that's why I'm so interested in uh
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accessibility for instance and things like deceptive patterns that are pretty very much also to do with uh
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accessibility and I uh design uh I talk a lot and I uh what
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else do I do I come to shows like this one and I talk at work camps and in fact
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at workamp Yun last year that iRun is on in the north of Spain I gave a talk on
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deceptive patterns and which I presented also workamp Europe last year but didn't
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didn't hit a nerve so I didn't it didn't uh it wasn't accepted um so I'm very uh
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happy to be here to talk about uh that today and thank you and uh if there are
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people when the people who are watching live please comment and we will be able to address your comments uh live on the
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show so uh please comment on
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YouTube yeah so there's actually I what I'm always
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wondering is we've been you started you did a really great int introduction thank you but is everybody aware of what
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deceptive patterns are is what I want that's a good what are deceptive
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patterns let's start from a story so
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when I was little maybe I was seven or eight I uh went to a birthday party and I was
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known for being I was very outgoing really happy child and could always take a joke also I had a a brother who's four
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years older than me so I was used to being mistreated I was fine you know you know I could I could take it so I went
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to this uh birthday party was outside in a garden uh in the summer in Italy and
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uh the mother of the of uh the child whose birth was said look we're going to
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do a game and you're going to be the protagonist and it's a really fun game
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and without you we can't do it because you're the best as at you're the you're the one with the best sense of humor and
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you're the best and so can you do it and I'm like yeah of course you know she she
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flattered me so much and made me think like I was going to be the queen of the party so I said of course and
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she um blindfolded me and the game consist Ed in me being Guided by the
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kids shouting and telling me no go this way go this way I'd forgotten i' forgotten the main dets seven I was
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seven a long time ago now so the and I would be guided and I think someone also
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held my hands and then at some point the screaming became so so loud because I
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think there was a there was a big prize for me at the end if I made it to the end there there was a big prize that I
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would win and what the prize was was was that I
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ended full full you know face flat into
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a paddling pool so the end was it of it was the ludum horror humiliation
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everybody laughing at me and yeah I was mortified I was absolutely mortified I
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went silent completely silent for the rest for the rest of the of the part part because also I remember that I had
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a hole in my socks and I was so ashamed because the the woman clearly gave me a change of clothes and I was so ashamed
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that she would see the hole in my socks and I was horrified that I was duped
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into trusting this woman that made me feel so important and so essential and
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then everybody was laughing at me he wasn't laughing with meing you all along
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the way until you're on your face honestly I when I I really absolutely sh
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when I think about it and that's bait and switch it's basically when you are they make you think that something's
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going to happen and then it's not sorry I'm going to drag out my folder where I
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have a few of my hall of Shame examples I think there was a very famous example a few years ago of a Windows update that
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made you do something very similar and then if you actually did click on it it would would have been an absolute
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disaster I think um it was something like that so this is what this is what
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uh yeah the I've got it here the latest this was from 2016 the latest Windows 10
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upgrade in 2016 dialogue contains a huge bait and switch when a user clicks the
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red x button in the top right top right expecting to dismiss the upgrade because
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interface X Red X that's what happens the upgrade actually
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initializes and I have never owned a Windows computer but I am told that
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upgrades especially a few years ago could be deadly so this was a really famous one of bet and switch and to me
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that's the story that the story that I it's just it's a bit extreme because you
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are that was like extreme humiliation but it's basically it's a manipula
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manipulation that happens all the time and um the time like pushing and
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encouraging a specific action that at the end of the day you don't want to
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happen at all exactly and deceiving you into thinking that it
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would it will be of advantage to you but it isn't and an interesting thing to
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note is that the term used to be it used to be known as dark patterns rather than
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deceptic patterns and then dark patterns is not really appropriate for a number
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of reasons thetive patterns is way better and the uh person who uh started
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talking about deceptive patterns is a someone called Dr Harry
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brignell uh he's the founder of the deceptive patn initiative and head of
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innovation a smart pension and the website that used to be called uh dark
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patterns is now de deceptive. design and I mention him
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because he deserves it but also because he's got a very good definition very good and very simple definition of
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deceptive patterns deceptive patterns are tricks used in websites and apps
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that make you do things that you didn't mean to like buying or signing up for
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something for example trick wording sneaking obstruction but there are many
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many many types of deceptive patterns and and so many show up in our daily
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lives and we're so used to them that we don't realize they are we don't have to put out with them really and it's one of
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those things that when you when you realize what it is then you can't stop
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seeing them and you start thinking no I don't want this I don't deserve this so
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it's important that we start uh learning about them because I think that we might
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inadvertently use them because some of them are actual marketing I I wouldn't
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call them strategies I would rather use the the word um tactics but yeah they
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are there's there's marketing tactics but then there's also you made me think of uh deceptive patterns as default set
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settings in plugins and themes and that default settings that are not the
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correct default is also it's deceptive in a way but it's also deceptive C
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patterns can be unintentionally implemented in your code um and I was
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just thinking I'm going to pick on Easy Digital downloads a software plug-in that I love I we host everything on Ed
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uh and yet they when you set up a new price ID the default recurring timeline
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is one day so I know multiple people who have set up uh accidentally recurring
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invoices for customers with like hundred of dollar plugins that repeat every single day because to me with Ed you're
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right yes and so it's not a deceptive pattern it's just a bug it's like
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unimplemented it's like a bad it's just they hadn't they haven't fixed it yet but it's it treats itself like deceptive
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patterns can being unintentional is what I'm trying to say accidentally deceptive
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setting and that the defaults are powerful and the the defaults that we choose to enable in our checkout process
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for example and having like opin uh marketing checked by default uh
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that is a default setting sometimes and uh like by having by presenting
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customers with the default of off that more honest than having a default of on
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for op yeah marke this is something that uh with the
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gdpr plugins for instance uh this happens so much a lot and gdpr is one of
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the laws that however annoying it is it was actually set up to protect people
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but the point is that a lot of the plugins the ones that have toggle
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options first of all already I shouldn't even be there because it's either accept or reject that that's what needs to be
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there sometimes there's an extra click and you have to go and adjust and some of them all the toggles are
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on and and it's like no I shouldn't be doing this usually unless I really need
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that website when when that is the case I just leave the site there is no way
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that I am I don't trust you you're not you're not trustworthy I can't trust
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you y so why is this topic important for WordPress product
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owners because that's an excellent
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question because I think I might be a uh
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I might be a romantic it's perfectly possible that I am but I firmly believe that ethical design ultimately is much
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better business than unethical design and which leads me to the concept of
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ethical design which is a relatively new discipline there's a fantastic book called ethical design by Trina falbe I
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can I can I'll drop the can can I drop the link in the chat I can can't I yeah
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I can put it here um and it it's it's like
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accessibility yes you will be fined yes it's better business because you will uh
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be you have you will have a bigger audience but I do believe that ultimately ethical design it's Better
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Business than than unethical design I've just seen a question from Amber which is
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a texbook textbook example of a deceptive pattern I can't recall the
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exact definition for it I don't think it matters but Amber is asking how about popups for optins well the language is
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something negative like no thanks I don't care about making money it's awful
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this is a typical deceptive pattern and the thing is that I have seen it done I an example of this in my hall of shame
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that is incredible it's you have like is this like a presentation you have your
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hall of Shame like is this something sharable or I um I didn't so this one
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that I'm talking about yeah I have a few in myun uh keynote but I I never did the
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the English version because it wasn't accepted but I uh didn't insert this one
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because I think I mentioned it maybe because I I do a show with Nathan Wrigley on uxui we've just opened the
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new season today and at the end we always do a section on deceptive patterns so um this is something that I
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think I shared there but I don't know if I had actually the heart of showing it because this is someone I know and I
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know she's a good person and she's done something terrible so she's a cancer
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survivor and she published a book to help cancer survivors
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and her message the version of Amber the Amber is is referring that kind of thing
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that Amber is referring to at the bottom the the yes button is yes I want to help
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to change my cancer story The no button says no thanks
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please do not add this life a affirming offer to
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oh my gosh oh my God it just it absolutely is is shocking
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and the thing is that she the the initial offer the book I bought the book
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to help out it's like $7 this is this additional offer is £
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397 it's a lot of money and also it's really specifically for cancer survivors
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which I'm not you don't know if I am or not yeah I think for me the the thing
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about deceptive patterns is that uh the question that product owners should ask
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themselves is what is your relationship with customers and are you in to are you
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in only to make money and you don't care about the customers or you actually trying to do the best by the customers
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and develop a working relationship that lasts for years and is based on trust and and honesty and integrity and I
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think that the tricking customers is not a good business to be in and absolutely
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and regarding that popup for example shaming people is not a good business to be in don't treat people badly uh is a
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good kind of foundational starting point yeah be really easy to think about those
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things as like oh it was just tongue and cheek but like your users don't know you and they don't know your sense of humor
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and they don't experience it and you don't know what's going on in their lives at the moment like those types of things can just come across so badly I
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mean I think when comes to like why I I think of this one is terms of why is it relevant to Wordpress product owners and
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generally speaking I think it's because deceptive patterns are something that we
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tend to think about uh from a product marketing perspective because of how
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difficult it is for uh premium products in particular to have a relationship
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with their customers and that we have so many restrictions uh around us in terms of the freemium uh
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model um with wordpress.org that it's that you have to get so creative to
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think about how can I the the term that's used de anonymize U my free users
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like how can I get to understand who my free users are how can I get to see uh if they're upgrading or not or if the
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features that I have or what they want or not uh when I don't even have a relationship with them when they install
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my plugin in the first place so we have to get so creative that like it makes us think of like I I'll just like ask them
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for their email in this way that's really not asking them for their email like or I'll just like glean some
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information in ways that they probably don't think I'm gleaning information and it's like and it won't really hurt them
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like it was not going to be a big thing and I just need it to do this and that and the other it's a slippery slope into
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into essentially losing um trust with our users essentially but uh I'm not trying to like Pawn off responsibility
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and say well it's because things are hard in WordPress but I do think that because of our circumstances it kind of
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makes us think in a lot more of this kind of path um because our options are
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so limited generally speaking so yeah I think that in this case so maybe there
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is something wrong with the model though if they could be you know I think it's a legitimate idea to float perhaps it
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could be or because for instance a course creators that upload their
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courses to udemy don't have a direct they can email their um course uh the
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people who their students but they not directly it's all through udemy and again that's a huge limitation still not
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a a good reason but it is in this case specifically I think
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maybe uh the model is not it's is old enough now to maybe rethink I don't know
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but anyway I'm not going to go into that because Al I I don't know enough about it but in terms of how it's relevant to
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Wordpress product product owners I work with a lot of uh WordPress products and
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this is one of the things that I do I point out the things that create
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friction whether you realize it or not and if you irritate me if there's
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someone else that offers me the same product without irritating me you can count on
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me going to them because why should I choose you and I mean there are very few products that don't have any competition
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are there because there are and it's so so obvious when a product really is just
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about the good of the customers it's really so and I firmly believe in what I
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call the ux value someone called Joni who's a great ux petitioner actually
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came up with a term the ux value Loop he calls it and it's when it's where it's
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the sweet spot where the users need meet the business's goals because if the
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business doesn't make money as you were saying Matt that can't be good ux you you described exactly the right
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situation where the ux value Loop can't happen because it's very hard for the
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business to find a sweet spot where the not only the customer gets value but also the business so that is the tricky
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bit and that's one of the things that I uh strive to do with uh with my work
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with WordPress products and it's things that sometimes are in build in your
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product one of them like I'm going to quote like a mention a really simple one
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which is uh if you're selling a software as a service that is that has a sub
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subscription model are you sending an email a few days before renewal this is so simple if
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you're not you may make people feel trapped like skillshare which is a
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course platform never did that to me and I realized two years after not using the
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product that i' given them $200 without ever entering the platform because it was using a card I didn't really look at
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so that's another deceptive pattern so this is one simple way in which you can
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help your customer and I don't think it costs anything well it good question
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that's one that I dig into quite a lot that's one that we deal with on the customer success side of things and the
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there is actually some real good math that people can do like essentially what do you feel like is a worst experience
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for your customer that they get charged um unexpectedly and then demand a refund
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or that they cancel their subscription before they get charged um of course
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when you start pushing out email reminders ahead of an annual renewal in particular annual renewals are a much
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bigger deal than monthly of course so if you're not sending out an a renewal ahead of time you're going to see your
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renewal rate dip because people are like oh I want to cancel that before that happens but if you do it you should also
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see that your refunds on renewals also dip a ton and from what we're seeing in
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a little bit of a test of what we're doing at Stellar right now we're actually calculating that that actually
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is a plus for us that we actually have fewer refunds um and fewer um and and
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not as much of a hit on the renewal rate um which ends up being a positive um and
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I think that I think generally speaking that goes towards the whole idea of like doing the ethical way to do it actually
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is good for business uh not only is it better for the customer themselves but it also results in better Revenue um so
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I totally agree with you on that one yeah we're we're in the business of only
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taking customers money who want to give us money and tricking people into giving us money or not canceling their
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subscription is not a good business to be in because you're always basing it on
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lies and deception and I I have a question for you though is it bad
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customer experience this is related to one of the comments we have in in the live chat is that bad customer
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experience uh to have ongoing sales that just like never end is that a bad
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customer experience is that deceptive pattern or what is that do they think
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we're idiots do they think we will not notice yes that is a really really bad
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one or like the the fake Black Friday just to be on on season seasonal theme
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that that in the end you realize that it's not really a discount it's just that you've infl at the price and now
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you've you taken it off but really you're cashing the same thing or the you know if like the buy buy uh buy three
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got two it makes that's what it makes you feel like instead of you know so yes I would absolutely say that the
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Perpetual say is sale is a deceptive pattern without a doubt it's
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manipulative fake yeah I think what that's grounded in um is every marketer
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will say that um you have to drive a sense of urgency um uh in these types of
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things and I think that folks have to learn how to actually do sales um to
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actually run discount campaigns um in order to drive urgency instead of just
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having like Perpetual there's no such thing as like Perpetual urgency like that's a oxymoron um so if you're going
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to run a discount sale run a discount sale and then be like no literally
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tomorrow is the last day and we're not gonna do this again um or you know not
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for a while at least so and that's that's exactly what Black Friday uh campaigns are built upon is that this is
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happening right now um and if you look across all of our Stellar sites in particular they're all saying exactly
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when the dates are now there might be like a couple Brands who might be like oh a surprise extension we're going to
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do one more extra day and that totally happens sometimes s maybe it's even planned ahead of time a little bit um
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but it doesn't change the fact that like the sale actually physically ends um and
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this is the time to buy um and we go around telling people folks telling folks that that like this is the time if
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you were ever thinking about getting a whole bunch of these things now is the best time to do it so yeah so thank you Matt for uh
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mentioning scarcity and the sense of urgency which is something that was actually mentioned in the in the
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comments I think by Kevin um because that's something that has a lot to do
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with ethical design and how and how
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deceptive patterns uh actually are an accessibility matter and there's an really great example in the ethical
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design book that I mentioned earlier which is about let me find it because I made an I made a note of it so some
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people with certain types of illnesses can be hugely affected by manipulative design patterns people with dyslexia for
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instance may find those W weird wordings that are meant to shame you really
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confusing or if you have the example that's in the book she says um she it's
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a someone called uh someone who called Bruce who has multiple sclerosis which
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is a disease in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and
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spinal cord are damaged damaged this damage disrupts the ability of parts of the nervous nervous system to
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communicate resulting in a range of signs and symptoms including physical mental and
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sometimesy psychiatric problems sorry I mangled that word but never mind so Bruce when
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his Ms is playing up experiences actual physical symptoms
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because it triggers his MS for instance he's saying when he's confronted with
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intrusive intrusive nags such as only two rooms left 900 people are looking at
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this right now five seconds left before you lose the deal of a lifetime and
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things like that he says um my heart races adrenaline kicks in and it leaves me feeling shaky and tired given that
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fatigue is also very Comm I'm reading the quote given the fatigue is also a very common symptom of aess I don't need
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extra help in becoming tired and really do we need to do that and he cites um
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travel and travel uh websites Ryan
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a you well people haven't flown if people haven't flown Ryan Air it's kind
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of worth flying Ryan air just to experience the deceptive patterns that they Implement same with Spirit Airlines
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in the US uh fly spirit and you'll know what Peach is talking about here oh but the same time it's it highlights so much
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why Southwest in the states is so amazing like I love with Southwest you always know exactly what you're buying
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and nothing more like it's it's always just like so simp and you only buy it from them and you're you're GNA get your
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seat and like it's they make everything simple it just highlights the huge difference and I feel like I feel like
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they zeroed in on that they look they looked at all the other US Airlines and how hyper sensitive and and how chaotic
29:55
and how intense everything was and they're like let's just make everything easy instead um I mean they're not
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they're not perfect no Airline is perfect but like I feel like they zeroed in on that like let's get rid of the
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stress in Airline stuff um as much as possible and I think that that should
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speak really highly of products too WordPress products should be able to dial in and say like I I kind of there
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was a early in the give I I've mentioned this a couple times the first like three or four years I give WP I was really
30:26
like a op about we don't do discounts like ever under any circumstance we never did them for at least like four
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years and it was because our target audience were nonprofit organizations like what's your nonprofit discount like
30:39
why would we have a nonprofit discount they're all supposed to be nonprofit so we're pricing it towards the value that
30:46
you're supposed to get why would we discount it um I love the Simplicity of
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it and in many ways I had people who who would respond and be like I actually really appreciate that um
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and I I we we did start doing discounts and I actually did see counter to my hopes and aspirations that there were
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plenty of buyers who really would specifically buy because of the 15% off
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discount which just baffled me I just didn't understand and that's one of those marketing things where it's like
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even though we would love for for some of these practices to not be be true
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they're based on actual like psychological things like there is like when there is a of urgency people do
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tend to buy a little bit quicker like and that that doesn't mean that we should like lean into it so heavily but
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I'm just saying like as much as as much as these tactics in my mind can get
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overblown they are based on actual like data as well um and you kind of have to
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be able to navigate between like well I don't want to just say don't do anything
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um that actually works you know um I need to be able to to navigate it correctly
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so yeah just a little bit of the push back on some of this stuff because we
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need a a third voice and and we if we're all like yeah all of this is terrible then then it's not a fun show so I have
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to be a little bit of the push back here no no I think it's an essential point to
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make because that's the point that a lot of people make they say yeah but they work and thex loop value Loop that I
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mentioned earlier does mean that you as a company need to make money because otherwise you can't offer anything to
32:30
your customer let alone let alone a deceptive pattern my point is though
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that I mean a discount is really one is it a deceptive pattern it I I don't like
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them I don't want to offer them because it makes me think whoa so it does it mean that my offer before was pumped up
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why would for L Mone conly inflating my prices yeah I know especially because
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it's not like I mean with clothes I understand because you need to get rid of them they're on the shelves but with
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a digital product it's not like uh you know it's gowp is a bit stale or actually you know I'll give you I'll
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give you the the the not updated version for less money it's like it doesn't work
33:14
like that so uh even though this for instance the ethical design book it's
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this is a an aspect that it uh touches on and it's I've got a quote here um
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some companies are bound to to be able to prove that dark patterns convert better than ethical design patterns
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maybe however what can happen when a dark pattern is discovered by users and
33:39
afterwards shared publicly is that conversion drops and your reputation drops and your brand uh perception drops
33:48
as well I don't I honestly do not think that it ever pays and I've seen it
33:53
happen so much like I remember for instance a very famous uh online course
34:01
for um WordPress Community people they kept doing you know they they were
34:06
really good a very good product but they kept doing this kind of stuff and you would be in the program and realize that
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what you pay like three times as much than the person who enrolled enrolled
34:19
three months after you were like why and it it was so bad and I know know people
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you know in the end left and they were just not happy with it anymore and there was a membership site so potentially
34:30
people could have could have left and that again is you know a membership is a product I have seen products that I have
34:37
worked with I don't know if I'm allowed to mention an ethical product that I've worked with but I was astounded at how
34:47
their focus was so much just on the client on the customer that I actually
34:54
had to tell them you got to be a bit more selfish here I don't get the Yuk's value Lube because you do too much for
35:00
your customer are you sure you're making enough money so you it can be done I
35:07
really will die on this hill that it can be done and I know so many entrepreneurs
35:13
that uh that do I'm thinking right now of examples outside the word WordPress
35:19
environment but I know people who sell courses and they have built an Empire
35:27
selling courses for membership for $99 a year and they're
35:34
multi-millionaires and they could sell the same thing for 2,000 a year easy
35:40
easy easy easy and they do 99 and they're multimillionaires and they work 10 hours a a a week
35:48
so I I think this is a good time to transition into story time and picha you
35:54
talked about your story already with uh being tricked into being made to look foolish which is
36:01
very cruel um I uh I have a story that
36:07
kind of touches on the the Allure and the problems with deceptive patterns which is uh the cancellation flow for
36:15
subscriptions um so I use a lot of uh products by
36:21
awesome motive uh I'm going to name them awesome motive does this and I think everybody in WordPress know knows that
36:27
they do this so I might as well say the say their name out loud um when you go to cancel awesome mode of products uh
36:33
there are you have to go through the ringer you have multiple steps where they try to convince you not to cancel
36:40
yeah and each of the steps uh plays on a different psychology it makes a lot of
36:47
sense like uh you go through one step and it says well is if this if you
36:52
select that you're canceling because of money they'll show you on the next step uh Hey keep your subscription we'll give
36:59
you 50% off the next year and we'll throw in these other couple things that are nice too and you say like uh I want
37:05
to keep cancelling and then it says oh are you sure because we have a great team of support if there's something wrong we're happy to help you have to
37:11
keep on clicking yes yes yes I want to cancel so when we looked at our own
37:16
cancellation flow because making thing Mak making it too easy to cancel can be a problem for customers because if
37:24
people don't have an active subscription they don't get support they don't get updates they don't get the added value
37:30
that you provide so we want to provide our customers with the most value if they cancel they do lose some of our
37:36
value that's the whole point of the of the ux uh the flow so we wanted to
37:43
figure out how to make a good subscription flow for ourselves so we condensed all of the reasons why they
37:48
shouldn't cancel onto one page put in a list and at the bottom of the list yes I still want to cancel and we wanted to
37:56
find out why why they are cancelling so we have a little why are you cancelling form at the bottom uh the cancellation
38:01
form at the bottom allows them to cancel right away and then it has follow-up questions that are emailed to them after
38:08
they cancel that are based on their responses that say Hey if you want to reactivate here's the reason why you
38:14
should reactivate based on your cancellation reason we think it's a good idea here's an easy way to do it uh in
38:21
advance of Black Friday this this year I uh I was looking at our cancellation flow again and I realized because we
38:28
recently changed our pricing that one of the things customers might not know about is that our their locked in
38:34
subscription rate is lower and if they cancel they will not have that access to
38:39
that same lower rate so I added a a notice at the top of the cancellation page that calculates the amount that
38:45
they're currently saving and says hey if you cancel you will not have access to this lower price yeah so I'm trying to
38:52
find a balance between using information that's help for the
38:58
customer trying to convince them on on our on our merits that they should not cancel and following up with reasons
39:05
they provide but not allowing not preventing them from cancelling in a way that's easy for I want to like I want to
39:11
like wave a hanky or something bring out the choir that's a
39:17
great one I mean so many people so many people are so pissed off about the way
39:22
awesome motive does that I have gone through it it is terrible it is torturous
39:27
um and I took notes too just like it's impressive yeah I took screenshots it's a magnum opus yeah yeah they're like
39:34
taking every single psychological reason and walking you through all of them like certain that one of them will ring true
39:41
for you um I love your your your middle ground there that sounds awesome yeah
39:46
that's that's very what you're doing is you're giving very helpful information the only thing that I hope is that the
39:52
form is not compulsory because really maybe I don't want to tell you right now don't for is not
39:58
compulsory right or the form is compulsory but that you you can just click the submit button without filling
40:05
out anything fields are required but yeah that's fine so that's I didn't know
40:10
whether you were allowed to mention people because uh Nathan Wrigley who's
40:15
one of the nicest most we do whatever we want you can say whatever you like okay
40:21
so the so in that case uh the the company that I thought was too good to
40:28
the customers was paid memberships Pro I was like oh they are they're great really is there any limit to the
40:34
free to people so ironically Kim is the
40:39
like me and Kim started this show together a long time ago really I didn't
40:45
know that well they're they're are they're awesome but because the thing is
40:50
that what we need to remember is that when people are doing something such as counseling or or buying a flight or
40:59
buying anything even for some people even buying a WordPress plug-in may be God knows how much research they've done
41:06
what's behind it what they're going to use it for how much money they have it's it can be a stressful moment so if you
41:14
make it so easy for them to buy it you need to make it as easy for them to come
41:21
off it when they need to and some of the back to the fear of missing out like the
41:28
you know the canceling thing you know wait a minute are you sure when it's done like that or using tricky wording
41:34
such as you know no thanks I I wanna I want to give up on the best plug-in that
41:40
ever existed something like that then people can have real anxiety attacks and
41:45
it really isn't even an exaggeration and they may think oh my God am I doing the right thing and start doubting
41:51
themselves especially if it's a client that maybe is not a what press expert
41:57
they don't know whether they're not entirely sure if they're doing the right thing and suddenly they're like oh maybe
42:03
not but they don't really want it so I think that that's something that's
42:09
really essential to bear in mind that we do not want to actually cause an anxiety
42:15
of attacking people that's never good yeah and and um Matt is probably
42:22
going to rejoin us soon but um the I saw a study that a few years ago that maybe
42:29
think of things uh that we can't do in digital world but the deceptive patterns
42:34
that exist uh in the physical world apparently when stores are warmer uh people buy less uh buy fewer
42:43
products at a lower price so keeping stores artificially cold is a way that
42:48
people can manipulate you into purchasing things so the just the the
42:55
amount of ways that people uh trick and deceive and manipulate psychology to to
43:02
make purchases happen is endless yeah that's an interesting one I
43:07
don't know I hate cold shops especially um clothes shops is like do you want me
43:13
to try this on or not because I'm not going to this is freaking cold so I find that a really weird one but but as a
43:21
general consideration we are really living in a very difficult
43:26
completely new age the digital age is still very young we're not used to it it's incredibly manipulative and it's a
43:34
surveillance Society it's basically surveillance capitalism so I mean WordPress prod products don't
43:43
necessarily do that but when I am pested by constant notices on the dashboard or
43:51
emails or uh you know things U messages FL crashing in in popups and things like
43:58
that I feel like you are monitoring me you you
44:03
are uh following my every move and it it
44:08
it it it bothers me a lot I mean I I I'm not going to go into what social media is doing in this sense of uh fear
44:15
missing out or U man manipulation and and all the terrible terrible things
44:20
that it's doing so I feel like it's our responsibility to do things ethically I
44:27
think that oh that's so sorry I just noticed very relevant to what I was
44:32
saying Kevin's question how do you draw the line on ethics is it subjective and
44:38
this is a conversation I've been having with some other WordPress World friends and one of them was saying well you
44:45
can't company are there to make money you can't expect them to be ethical as well unless there's a law prohibiting
44:53
them from doing certain things I don't actually agree with that and I
44:58
would be interested in if murder were legal would I go around murdering people that's the
45:06
question and it's yes they need to make money but they need to also make their
45:11
clients happy do both I mean like M making businesses sound so one-sided I
45:16
think is just so small-minded and it's just not the way like real business people operate either because like like
45:23
business people in general are not just trying to make money they're trying to build their team they're trying to provide a living for their for their
45:29
employees they're trying to build something that actually benefits the world in one way or another like we so
45:35
easily slip into this mindset where like the big corporation's out to get the little guy all the time which you know
45:41
has Merit but like so many businesses like the ones that we all run and are
45:47
part of are just like trying to do good work you know uh there is this little side conversation happening in over here
45:53
too that I want to clarify on a little bit um one of our co-hosts Amber is in the comments helping out and
46:01
um and Kevin is also saying um so discounts in general are deceptive just
46:07
accepted deception and that was to a conversation we were having earlier about discounts in general that like the
46:13
discounts work um and um and Amber is asking why why do you think that they
46:19
are deceptive because people don't expect the renewal at full price and that's really some of the kicker there
46:25
is that especially in the WordPress space um most often not always but most often uh they're providing a discount
46:32
for the first year only um and that is a highly deceptive practice when the
46:38
discount is presented and it's not made clear that it's for the first year only if it's like the there's a slash in the
46:45
price and here's your new price and it's not said discounts for first year only
46:51
uh the people buy in thinking like this is a great price I'm happy to pay this for for several years um and then they
46:56
find out that the next year is a lot more expensive than they expected that's completely unethical I would say so
47:03
that's one part of it but then our discounts themselves Uh Kevin follows up
47:09
um with a clarifying Matt was talking about how they are essentially a trick to get people to buy I really wasn't
47:15
trying to say that discounts are a trick to get people to buy they're an incentive that it tends to be an
47:21
incentive that that the studies actually say does actually work there are it's
47:27
there's something about our lizard brain that essentially is like more likely to
47:32
buy something um because it's discounted um like we're we were probably going to
47:37
buy that thing anyway uh but then like when we see that it's not discounted we're like H not today um but then it's
47:44
like oh I was probably going to buy this anyway it's 15% off right now then I'm gonna buy it um and that's the only
47:51
reason why they buy today instead of later uh because it happens to be discounted when they're looking at it um
47:57
so I don't think that that's necessarily deception uh it's literally giving people some money back of what they were
48:03
intending to to to purchase in the first place um but it is strategic and it is intentional but I do think the use of
48:10
discounts the way that you make sure that it's clear what are you getting with this discount is super important
48:16
and it can be a slippery slope into deceptive practices especially when it comes to any kind of subscription based
48:23
model on that note I have been doing some audits for a
48:31
hostinger and one of the things that they do and I mean that was the whole like kind of um
48:39
it felt like a an what's it called an obstacle race course a bit like R A but
48:44
anyway the the one of the things that um I pointed out to them is that uh they
48:53
give you they say that they give you a free domain but then in the end you realize it's not
48:58
a free domain it's free for a year so but it's written so small that I would
49:04
never have seen it and then in a year's time I have to pay for a domain that I only set up because it was the only way
49:10
I could actually move the site over so those are that's a kind of case where
49:17
you know you do a you do a it's not even a discount it's a free
49:22
thing and that is deceptive because you are going to to make me pay for something that I never would have got if
49:28
it hadn't been free in the first place and I actually do not I honestly do think that a lot of people that do this
49:35
do not stop and think this is unethical it's a deceptive pattern because some of these are like really have been taught
49:44
as marketing strategies for years and years and years and now people are starting to say actually no they're not
49:52
it's just bad it's wrong you you yeah tripping people that's it's a good point
49:58
too like there's no reason why we should take traditional things that have always been and always worked and just assumed
50:04
that they're continued to be okay um things definitely are moving and and and towards towards the good I would say so
50:12
for the next generation of product owners who are watching this show or listening to it uh what do you recommend
50:18
what's your best advice for new product owners start from the this start from my
50:28
best advice is find that sweet spot that I've been mentioning since the beginning
50:34
always ask yourself well hopefully when you actually get the product started
50:40
from the very beginning ask yourself where is that magical place where I make
50:46
a lot of money because that's what we all want I actually firmly believe that we all you know the world would be a
50:52
better place if everybody had loads of money and it's possible so where is that really wonderful place
50:58
where my business thrives and makes a lot of money but also my customers have
51:04
their problem solved and they love us for it how can I make that happen that
51:10
is the best advice I can give and I am
51:15
kind of pretty sure that that happens with ethical design and not with deceptive patterns and fine print fine
51:23
print there's a common mentioning fine print yeah no fine print I don't care if
51:29
it always existed it's horrible and it is painful and it only helps the
51:37
business maybe but unless I misunderstood the the unless I'm misunderstood the com comment but the
51:43
way I understood it fine PR print things are things that get Miss uh we whoops
51:53
wrong one hold on we should definitely bring that up that's my my partner in crime for a long time Devin Walker
51:59
coming in the comments fine print is nothing new it's common practice everywhere including in WordPress
52:04
totally true are you suggesting we get rid of fine print offers I
52:10
would I think there there is a sense in which there are like the fine print offer in which like the fine print is so
52:16
tiny that no human can read it I think that we absolutely 100% should get rid of that crap that that's garbage but I
52:23
think the purpose and the intention behind a fine print offer is that this discount or this offer has limitations
52:30
in one form or another and the fine print gives you the opportunity to make those limitations explicit I think that
52:36
that's excellent if if you need to put some sort of limitations around an offer in one form or another you absolutely
52:42
should be explicit about that but you should make sure that those guidelines or those limitations are legible that's
52:49
the only difference like let's make sure that somebody uh can read them and they don't need a microscope in order to read
52:55
them yeah so Apple yeah does this everywhere and I don't think that Apple
53:01
are a particularly ethical company they're super successful fine but I I
53:06
was a super early Apple adopter I my sister used to call me the Apple Taliban
53:12
I love them so much I was absolutely fanatic about them they've lost me entirely I only keep buying their
53:19
products because I don't have a choice I don't really have a choice but if I could I can assure you I would not buy
53:27
and that's quite funny bump up one pixel fun I would not buy Apple because the way also their products they're built is
53:33
very shady there's it doesn't the fact that a company is successful doesn't mean it's e ethical and I mean we
53:40
haven't even touched on Airbnb which don't activate me on on that point but I
53:48
actually really we we do need to wrap up I would love to hear Zach's best advice yes uh so my best advice that I find is
53:56
really helpful is saying what you're about to do to someone else out loud and
54:02
seeing how you feel about it while you're saying it if you feel like you're getting away with something if you feel
54:07
like or if you feel like you're being uh tricky or if you feel a sense of Shame
54:12
take another pass at it don't do it don't do it wonderful advice yeah I love
54:20
that that's a really good one I think my best advice is literally keep it simple like I I really think in general uh
54:27
don't try to complicate stuff with all kinds of like caveats and weird quirks and things like that if it's not really
54:34
clear what's going on on your sale or on your product that's the problem the problem isn't that people aren't buying
54:40
it's not that you need to trick them uh it's not that you need to do something flashy and special it's just that you
54:45
need to be clear and simple and straightforward um and once your offer and your value is super clear the people
54:53
who need it will buy it um so I I would just always try to keep it simple so
55:00
cool cool well Pacha this was amazing I'm so glad we had you on and and such a timely topic too right right before
55:07
Black Friday so watch out for Black Friday don't judge my email flow please
55:12
it's there's a lot of fear missing out on my email flow I'm sorry nobody's
55:17
perfect right that's we can always strive to be better nice thank you so much for having
55:23
me was so much fun absolutely uh Zach do you know what we got going on next
55:29
week uh Matt I don't but I do want to thank uh post status for being our Green
55:34
Room uh if you're enjoying these shows uh listening to them or watching them live please hit like subscribe share
55:41
with your friends add us to your newsletters um and Matt uh what is what is going on next week if you could bring
55:49
us in on the loop oh Matt has frozen so I uh hope to
55:54
see you all next week thank you so much Pacha it's been a pleasure and goodbye bye