Useit.Com: Persuasive Design: New Captology Book. After ten dark years of fighting (and partly conquering) user-hostile design without much theoretical progress in HCI, Dr. Fogg has now opened the field's next frontier with his work on "captology" -- computers as persuasive technologies. [Tomalak's Realm]

Essentially, "How to use the user's actions to get what you (the designer) want." I do wish people would migrate their terminology from HCI to simple functionality. There is no functionality that is not HCI (unless it's strictly back-end, but even then there's the support staff to think about). Aside from that, it's great to recognize that we need to get to know a web site just like a person. Stranger, Acquaintance, then trusted friend.

comment []4:30:06 PM