Design Friction and Digital Nudging: Impact on the Human Decision-Making Process

People make a vast number of decisions every day and these decisions invoke either a reflective or automatic behavior. Using e.g., nudging to influence a person’s behavior in a positive direction can have beneficial sustainable effects. This study aims to illustrate how digital nudging and design friction can be used to induce a reflective behavior in users of digital services during their decision-making. The field of study is the user’s reflection regarding sustainable choices when ordering meals online. The results provided from this initial case study showed that the participants preferred prototypes with implemented design approaches of digital nudging and design friction over a neutral prototype. Nudging had great impact on the decision-making process and provided feelings such as guilt if the participants did not select the option with the lowest carbon footprint. The design approach also induced a reflective behavior among the participants. Introducing so-called design friction provided a reflective behavior but had no impact on the participants decisions. Results also showed that even detailed information in the neutral prototype provided an informative and reflective behavior, which in some of the cases had an impact on the participants’ decisions.