Mental hijacking
A mental model to use and abuse.
The urge to touch this subject appeared while confronted with a situation that made me feel like my mind was being hijacked using a food delivery app. It made me feel angry about being duped and at the same time questioning my sanity. This article tries to help you take back control of your own mind.
First, let’s explore some core concepts.
What is psychological hijacking?
Psychological hijacking: “Taking leverage out of psychological vulnerabilities (consciously and unconsciously).”
Which is pretty much the definition of a Dark Pattern:
“a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills.” — Harry Brignull (PhD Cognitive Science), 2010
Software is developed through patterns and process flows. Through this deeply calculated interface design, it is possible to craft experiences in a way the users end up doing things they don’t really want. Mental models play a big part in this process.
What are mental models?
In the context mentioned previously, are deeply ingrained processes that each of us hold in our mind (usually through repeated exposure to specific patterns) that influence how we understand the world, and, inadvertently, how we take actions.
As a simplification for discussion’s sake, think of it as a default mode for certain tasks. For example, if you were to use autopilot on a Tesla, you wouldn’t be consciously making decisions such as riding as close as possible to the road mark.
Creating something just to destroy it.
This reminded me of something I stumbled upon in Ron Fricke’s Samsara (2011). There was footage of Buddhist Monks from Tibet that have a practice of Mandala creation. A coloured Mandala shaped with sand by a group of monks. Each Mandala usually has more than 1,5meters on each side. Grain by grain this group builds this representation of the world, perfectly balanced. It takes millions of grains and several days each Mandala. Albeit visually powerful, this geometric representation with intricate symbolic patterns, which would stun any passing stranger to this mesmerising piece, holds true purpose for this laborious task in the message to call upon meditation and awareness of something larger than their own world.
Once completed, the monks pray over it and destroy this divine geometry of the heavens. Why? Because nothing is permanent. All things are in constant flux.
This seems very beautiful and poetical, right? It does seem like a cathartic practice. Aligned with a purposeful intent of the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence. All things are transient. All physical and mental events come into being and dissolve.
A lot of content nowadays at one point or another, takes a turn to Buddhism. As with everything, this should be taken with a grain of salt.
Let’s take a look at a more relatable example.
Imagine you’re in your kitchen cooking pasta. You get the pan, fill it with water and by the time it’s boiling, without looking you stretch your arm to grab some salt. Only to find it’s not at its usual place. This shows how disruption of mental models may affect you at a very elementary level, but also how muscle memory can play a part in mental models. Repetitive patterns of interaction are imprinted in our muscle memory to a point where one barely needs to actually think about doing a specific action (like fetching the salt).
The way I see it, creating mental models can be just like the monk’s practice of creating mandalas, albeit beautiful and laborious, it leaves a residual mark. Cause and effect, in the mandala case it could be the whimsical wish to have preserved somehow that art piece, while on the mental model case it leaves inherent neural pathways that may mislead you when confronted with similar challenges.
The hard case.
Now, the actual case of the food delivery app.
A company which I won’t mention has recurrent 2 items for the price of 1 promotion. They even have an area of the homepage dedicated to this. Recently they have made a change in the UX pattern.
Let’s go over the flow of the old pattern (flow #1).
First impression from the user upon opening the app is a full width carousel displaying the news available and promotions. 80% of the time it displays said promotion of 2 for 1. Tapping said carousel the user already has access to the array of restaurants with this promotion in effect. After selecting one, there’s a section collecting the items to which the promotion applies. Selecting one of those items, specifying the order and adding it to cart, automatically adds 2 items of the one you’ve specified (of course if the promotion applies to such item of said restaurant). Straight forward and low friction.
Now let’s go over to the second flow which created confusion for less attentive users like me.
The main difference in flow for this second model of interaction, is that now the system doesn’t automatically duplicate your order (when compliant to the promotion’s criteria). Now the user only has a section that tells the user has to add to the cart this item two times to have the promotion in effect. Which requires additional effort by the user, to pay attention to this novelty and add another item. This section doesn’t have a big visual weight, merely a box with same sized text like the rest of the sections, which doesn’t underline this need with proper affordance.
This change affects unconsciously the user’s mental model, the user’s satisfaction with the experience, and ultimately the user’s pocket. Since the platform doesn’t accept it as a report in case the user didn’t read the aforementioned description (and consequently acted upon it) having received only one item as the promotion advertises and as the previous mental model assured, leaving the customer only with one item and deception. This in itself is a Dark Pattern. Taking leverage out of the user’s mental model to possibly generate more revenue for the platform and restaurant, on account of the user’s inattention, self-doubt and possibly even worst psychological effects.
Human beings are a species of habits and patterns. The disruption of usual processes will probably go unnoticed if the affordance is too low. Using these vulnerabilities for profit seems wrong to me. Not to mention it’s largely unethical. Of course, there isn’t as much concern for taking into account the possible nefarious effects of behavioural psychology to the user’s mind, as there is for the fastest way to achieve a business goal.
On a brighter note, the platform has now updated the model to merge both of the previous mentioned behaviours. The disclaimer is present (as per flow #2) but the item is duplicated at the time of adding it to the cart (as was experienced in model #1). So now there is a mixed experience between both mental models which makes it more fluid and lessens the friction. However, questions still remain as to the true purpose of flow #2.
Drives & Backfires
Entertain me for some speculative thought on why, how and what results of these mental model practices.
Business always plays a big role in these questions, for all kinds of reasons: faster deliveries, faster production, increase revenue, and so on… However, these sort of strategies are usually short-lived. Based on the models discussed, this can create more revenue due to this exploitation of the user’s already established mental model. After the user is able to pick up how he’s being manipulated by the platform, he will learn from it and stay away from falling into the same trap. Of course, this raises ethical concerns.
Doubting ourselves and our memories does seem like an overly metaphysical act to have on a daily basis.
What are the side effects that this approach might trigger in the user’s psyche?
Starting to doubt oneself is a common trait of these mental model manipulations. By changing already defined paths that the user follows on autopilot without much cognitive strain, due to the previous repetition of the initial flow. What at first enables the user to complete tasks with ease, when changed might make this flow take longer to complete and introduce memory distrust. “Something’s different… Was it like this before? Did something change? Am I going insane?” Might be some of the internal dialogue going on through a user’s mind at the time.
Memory distrust is an actual very serious condition, I’m not specifically addressing this pathology. Our brain has the particular tendency to store memories in a very relatable way, be it via different stimuli association, which people have different ways to remember stuff better, via visual memory, auditory memory, olfactory memory, emotion memory… In some cases, the brain leaves room for interpretation. I’ve read somewhere a while ago of someone remembering scenes from a TV show as something that it actually happened in her life (almost like The Truman Show). These are vulnerabilities present in our highly complex biomachine which is the brain.
Product and UX Designers should take care of the user’s psyche and be wary of the implications some design and business decisions might have on the user. We are the ones that have some degree of psychological knowledge to advocate within the tech world. Let’s not just worry about how pretty an interface is or how seamless an experience can be, but how much value does this add to the user.
