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Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences
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What happens when you've built a great website or app, but no one seems to care? How do you get people to stick around long enough to see how your service might be of value? In Seductive Interaction Design, speaker and author Stephen P. Anderson takes a fresh approach to designing sites and interactions based on the stages of seduction. This beautifully designed book exami
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Paperback, 240 pages
Published
June 25th 2011
by New Riders Publishing
(first published May 12th 2011)
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Start your review of Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences

This book is very similar to Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, but longer, packed full of even more concrete examples, and making a more direct effort to tie each example to universal psychological principles such as our love of pattern recognition and set completion or our need to reciprocate generosity.
Anderson shows how when you interact with a website, it's a lot like interacting with a stranger you've just met for the first time. In both cases, you don't want to ask for too much pers ...more
Anderson shows how when you interact with a website, it's a lot like interacting with a stranger you've just met for the first time. In both cases, you don't want to ask for too much pers ...more

Great read! This belongs on the shelf with Don't Make me Think and The Design of Everyday Things. It's a quick read but what it communicates is invaluable and will change the way you design. My only issue is with the references being so temporal. In 10 years I don't know if people will know wat MailChimp is (Sorry MailChimp) but the information in the book is timeless.
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I purchased this book when looking for practical design advice for my new software startup. I spent some time researching various titles before finally settling on this book. Seductive Interaction Design did not disappoint! Despite being a relatively small book, it is filled with lots of useful tips, suggestions and anecdotes. I've found other software-oriented books to be heavy in theory but light in real world value. This book managed to include a bit of theory but plenty of clear examples of
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Surprisingly interesting book (even for someone with almost no prior experience with good designs). First part deals with basic don't do's, the second one with most common practices and the last one with user motivation. I recommend reading Predictably Irrational before this one.
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Engaging design is a topic I get really excited about and it was a cool take on relating psychology principles to UX design through a dating analogy. The book was broken into short chapters so it was easy to pick up and put down as I had time/energy. It is full of familiar principles from psychology and lots of example designs to illustrate his points. I would love an updated version (this book was published in 2011) to show more recent examples in the aesthetics section, but I think the fund
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Filled with lots of examples and experiments explaining psychology aspects that can be used for designing a seductive interaction design. Covers topics from aesthetic, beauty, small steps, and even on how to make a game on your products. Topics such as sequencing, framing, anchoring, associations, feedback loop, variable rewards, etc. The examples and experiments presented make it easier to actually understand what the author trying to say.
The writing style of this book also non-native friendly ...more
The writing style of this book also non-native friendly ...more

A very well gathered collection of psychological theories and behavioral studies that will result in delight or seduction as he calls it. The book is very easy to read with lots of examples.
Although I didn't like the book design because of vibrant colors and flamboyant chapter headings. ...more
Although I didn't like the book design because of vibrant colors and flamboyant chapter headings. ...more

The focus of most interaction design books tends towards interface design - where to use a button, when to show a list, etc. Seductive Interaction Design takes a different approach, a much more human one. What behaviors do you want your users to have? How do you influence behavior? For example, people naturally want to complete a set of something - so if your app has a multi-step process, make this impulse work for you. Full of examples found "in the wild", it shows how to use game design to psy
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As mentioned at the end of the book, the interface examples did not age well indeed. The theory part was quite broad and consequently superficial, I would rather just read all the books mentioned by the author. A lot of the practice mentioned (regarding interactions) is also outdated, which only proves how fast this field moves, and how important is continuous study. But for me, the part that nailed how incredibly out of touch with the current reality this reading was, is when the author says th
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This is the first book in a long, long time, I think deserves more than the 5/5 rating. A real delight :)
What I was looking for going in:
- structured analysis of the factors that matter in "UX"
- use of real-life examples and screenshots for better illustration
- backed by convincing research
I got all of this plus
- clear, funny and concise writing style (maybe because the author used to be an English teacher)
- nice formatting (the newspaper style of having two text columns on a page makes it much ...more
What I was looking for going in:
- structured analysis of the factors that matter in "UX"
- use of real-life examples and screenshots for better illustration
- backed by convincing research
I got all of this plus
- clear, funny and concise writing style (maybe because the author used to be an English teacher)
- nice formatting (the newspaper style of having two text columns on a page makes it much ...more

Quite amusing & refreshing for those just getting into UX or design. The author gives great examples (supported by research, of course) of situations where small tweaks in design paved the way for better results. From forms and content rules to psychological traits and theories, this book has it all :)

Anderson does a stellar job illustrating the building blocks and levers to think about when creating an interactive design. His concepts are very concrete and actionable. I did struggle a bit getting through this book though because of his writing style. I've never said that about a book before. Nonetheless, my 4-star rating was soley based on the content which is very impressive.
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This book was wonderful. I start it at a perfect time and it summed up everything psychology related that I've read in the last couple of months.
If you are a designer that wants to know more about human behaviour and how to use design to drive it, this is your book. It has plenty of examples and references to studies and it's really easy to read.
One of the best books you can read. ...more
If you are a designer that wants to know more about human behaviour and how to use design to drive it, this is your book. It has plenty of examples and references to studies and it's really easy to read.
One of the best books you can read. ...more

There's not a lot to say about it – it's a very useful book for budding interaction designers and would-be UX professionals. It's simple and engaging and gets fundamental ideas across straightforwardly. Indeed, if you're into this sort of thing, I recommend this title.
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A long overdue read, that has been patiently waited in my bookshelf for a long time. I heard many good things when it was published and I can see why that was. It provides a good overview on behavioural economics, habit-forming and leveraging human biases. You learn about making use of psychological phenomena and game mechanics in interaction and user experience design. However, over the past years, many other books, articles and podcasts on these topics have been published, as well. Therefore,
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While the examples are dated (remember Gowalla? 2011 is a long time ago in internet years) - the content is still good; Practical examples of how to delight your users, break things down in snack sized bits and don't ask for surplus information - and make the experience fun :)
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How to keep users involved?
It's an extension of "Emotional Design".
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It's an extension of "Emotional Design".
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Seductive Interaction Design is more than a provocative title. It's a book that is surprisingly grounded in human behavior and psychology-- brought together in practical comprehensible terms and chapters.
The sequencing and pacing of this book is just right to get you inspired by the opportunities to make your website more enticing. Where it excels, compared to Designing for Emotion for example, is it doesn't ever become focused on emotion as the outcome. Seductive IxD maintains the perspective t ...more
The sequencing and pacing of this book is just right to get you inspired by the opportunities to make your website more enticing. Where it excels, compared to Designing for Emotion for example, is it doesn't ever become focused on emotion as the outcome. Seductive IxD maintains the perspective t ...more

I had really high expectations on this book. Not so long ago I read "The Design of Everyday things" and I was hoping that this one was focused on online applications. Actually it is, but I had to say that I felt a bit disappointed as I found some of the examples from the beginning of the book just too silly. However, the book has some really interesting thoughts and it does the purpose the writer intended, which is to inspire, to give ideas and clues of how a website can attract more users and w
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Anderson puts psychology and technology in a blender and hits frappé in this short and highly-readable primer on interactive design. In chapters thick with practical examples, he covers the basics of aesthetics (particularly as it relates to user experience), persuasive technology, and gamification, all in a laid-back conversational tone. Color illustrations abound, allowing readers to actually see the design elements Anderson discusses in action, as it were.
Given that I read this for a class, I ...more
Given that I read this for a class, I ...more

Very nice book. The way that it is written makes it easy to read and understand. The frequent relations between romantic seduction and interface/design seduction are often quite ingenious.
I particularly enjoyed the last chapter of the book that gives a larger focus to questions surrounding the area of gamification. It is a really direct book most of the times where the author shows that he knows what is really important and what are the questions that he is trying to somewhat answer with is book ...more
I particularly enjoyed the last chapter of the book that gives a larger focus to questions surrounding the area of gamification. It is a really direct book most of the times where the author shows that he knows what is really important and what are the questions that he is trying to somewhat answer with is book ...more
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Stephen P. Anderson is a speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He spends unhealthy amounts of time thinking about design, psychology and leading intrapreneurial teams—topics he frequently speaks about at national and international events.
Stephen recently published the Mental Notes card deck, a tool to help businesses use psychology to design better experiences. And, he’s currently wri ...more
Stephen recently published the Mental Notes card deck, a tool to help businesses use psychology to design better experiences. And, he’s currently wri ...more
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“I think it's more accurate to think of aesthetics as a key ingredient in a recipe, as opposed to the icing on the cake.”
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“If you want to make someone curious, make them aware of something they don’t know.”
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