Towards Deeper Understanding of Persuasion in Software and Information Systems

A growing number of information technology systems and services are being developed for persuasive purposes, i.e. to change users´ attitudes or behaviour or both. Despite the fact that attitudinal theories from social psychology have been quite extensively applied to the study of user intentions and behaviour, computer scientists and user interface designers are not very familiar with the theories related to attitude change. Moreover, these theories are not directly applicable for developing software and information systems. This paper builds upon the attitude change theories from social psychology recognising dimensions and approaches that help move towards a practical conceptual framework for understanding and designing persuasion in information systems.