Authority principle and UX
You are walking down the road to work like you do every other day. Because you seem to have a job that pays you but not that well, the reason for which you are walking. Or you are a health-conscious person who wants to achieve that golden bell of fitness by taking the few steps to work. Either way, you are currently walking to work. Suddenly out of nowhere, a person appears dressed in a black suit and carrying a black suitcase in his hands. His hair is neatly combed and the black goggles just compliment his neatly shaven face. He looks like an FBI agent right out of a book. The few seconds you spend blinking, he places an arm on your shoulder and says “Sir! I need to see your ID”. The next thing you know, you are handing over your ID to this stranger.
Again, on another day, you are walking through the same road because that is what you do at this time of the day. Take yourself to work so that you can afford some Biryani and maybe some beer later on with the pay that you get. Suddenly out of nowhere, a person appears, ragged clothes, dirt-smudged all over him, shabby beard which hasn’t seen water as long as you haven’t seen the gym. The stench from the person is enough to make you forget the Biryani and the ‘may-be’ beer you were dreaming of while walking. The few seconds you spend frowning and making that face, the man places an arm on your shoulder and says “Sir! I need to see your ID”. The next thing you know, you are shooing that person away. You throw in some expletives as well. How dare he asks for an ID? Moreover, how dare he touch you?
Well! What do we have here? Apart from you(well, subconsciously everyone of us) being a discriminant prick, we also see something that we learn about human behavior.
Our tendency to obey the person who seems authoritative. We are simply wired that way. This my friend, is the Authority Principle!
We are trained to obey our elders, especially our parents when we are children. Till a certain age, we blindly agree and obey whatever we are told. Your parent might tell you not to touch the fire, it’ll hurt you. You believe them and try to stay away from the fire as much as you can. Your teacher tells you that 1x1=1, you take your teacher’s word for that because in the class the teacher is the authoritative figure. Though we tend to question everything after a certain point, that particular emotion towards an authoritative figure remains rooted within us throughout. There’s no point in being denial and saying “No! I listen to nobody except me. I’m a born rebel”. Wait till you fall sick and the doctor tells you not to eat something. You’ll think twice before eating that particular food the next time.
Agreed that when we become adults, we turn into a skeptical bunch of people. But comments from an authority helps our thought process to come to a decision. Mostly to a decision that their suggestion is more reliable than ours.
Authority and UX
We can all agree that authoritativeness is bad at times. Which means it is also good at times. An expert opinion is always a good-to-have right? We are happy seeing 9 out of 10 dentists suggesting a particular toothpaste and big celebrities asking us to drink a particular soda for no joy. That is how brands work and slowly skew our thoughts to the way they want us to think.
Interesting! I should write another article on that.
Coming back to our point in context, expert opinions help us across different tasks and activities and decisions. How do we include this into UX? Well, we have been seeing and experiencing instances of this Authority Principle almost every day in most of the things we see. The UX professionals, use this to their advantage to tell the user that the design is credible and then, “do-what-I-say”. I shall give you a few examples because that is what is expected from articles and I’m sure you are expecting something like that since you are reading this article.
Here, IDF emphasizes on the fact that they provide superior UX Education through quotes by non-other than the great Don Norman and also Forbes.
Towards the end, they also establish their authority over you by showing you all the big companies who “trusts” IDF.
The classic dentist’s recommendation is how Colgate establishes their authority over you.
Now since we have seen a few examples of how this principle is used and can be used, we should also keep in mind that we do not misuse this to cheat the users out there. Come on! We are the good guys. Right?
Okay, good! Now since we have agreed upon the fact that we are the good guys, we should also keep in mind that we try to stay in line with what message we are trying to pass to the user. We cannot use a dentist’s image saying “This is the best travel agency. Recommended by 9/10 dentists”. How dumb would that turn out to be? Hilarious too! I for one will not be taking a dentist’s recommendation on my travel.
The Authority Principle will remove the strain of decision making from the user to a great extent. We all know how painful it is to make a decision. Just yesterday I almost cried due to the strain I was put through while ordering a Biryani through Swiggy. There were so many options and I was spoilt for choice. Where should I order from? Someone should have told me, “Yo! Buy from here. Recommended by 9/10 Biryanists”. This might be a tad bit far fetched I guess. No? So that is about The Authority Principle.
Whenever in doubt about whether any principle in UX will be helpful to your end-user, think if you would use the particular product if you were the user and you were subject to persuasion by that particular technology.
