There is a discrepancy between actual and perceived risk. To tackle this perception issue, we created a design framework and defined design principles based on customer insights and expert knowledge to build a common understanding of how to develop a holistic and consistent approach towards trust and safety on eBay.
Designing for Trust – Presentation at Interact 2011, Lisbon, Portugal
1. eBay, Inc. Proprietary & Confidential
DESIGNING FOR TRUST
Understanding and influencing the perceptions of
trust within a dynamic, global marketplace
Andreas Woelk, Manager User Experience Design, eBay Inc.
September 6, 2011
2. What were we solving for?
The Problem:
There is a discrepancy between actual and perceived
risk. We have a perception issue!
3. What were we solving for?
The Objective:
Increase the perception of trustworthiness.
4. What were we solving for?
The Strategy:
Create a design framework and define design
principles based on customer insights and expert
knowledge that build a common understanding of how
to develop a holistic and consistent approach towards
trust and safety on eBay.
5. A user-centered, iterative approach
5
Understand
customer
needs
Create
design
framework
and
principles
Apply
Test and
measure
Evaluate
results
Update
if needed
Leverage
internal
and
external
research
Listen
to our
customers
6. A pragmatic definition of trust
Trust is the willingness of one party (trustor)
to be vulnearble to the actions of another party
(trustee) based on expectation that the other party
will perform a particular action important to the trustor,
irrespective of the abilty
to monitor or control that other party.
6
Behavioral definition of personal trust. Coleman, 2009
7. …and a few principles
Trust is
... about meeting expectations.
... growing over time.
... both rational and emotional.
... hard to build, but easy to lose.
7
8. How do we want to be perceived?
8
Enforcement
Educationlow high
high
9. Design principles
1. Formulate the relationship between eBay and its users; set clear expectations.
2. Make security an implicit part of eBay (e. g. protect privacy).
3. Build a population of informed, confident and competent buyers and sellers.
4. Be transparent, consistent and predictable.
5. Design for ease of use.
6. All messages must be contextual and relevant.
7. Provide easy access to customer services.
8. Give customers control over their personal information and privileges.
9. Offer incentives for taking responsibility.
10. Stay true to the eBay brand.
10. The principles applied – seller registration
Ease of use and meeting needs of
different user segments:
• Offer fast track for users who just
want to complete the task.
• Provide additional information for
those interested.
Clearly set expectations for the user for
what needs to be done.
Be transparent about what eBay does.
Clearly set expectations for future
interaction to avoid surprises.
Protect privacy:
• Assurance that eBay takes the
privacy of its users seriously.
• Provide quick and easy access to
privacy policy (in plain English).
13. How do we want to be perceived?
13
Source: http://www.ok.gov/opm/jfd/g-specs/g28.htm
Are we a police officer?
Enforce laws and regulations
Eliminate hazards, vandalism or other criminal activity
Provide protection for individuals and property (may carry
firearms and be required to use force to enforce security,
apprehend suspects, or protect lives)
Provide assistance to authorities in the handling or
investigation of emergency situations and incidents
Plan, coordinate and direct law enforcement programs
14. How do we want to be perceived?
14
Protection of property
Gathering and dissemination of information
Development of interpretive material
Enforcement of law and regulations
Investigation of violations, complaints,
trespass/encroachment, and accidents
Perform safety inspections
Are we a park ranger?
Source: www.nps.gov/personnel/rangers.html
15. How do we want to be perceived?
15
Are we a community support officer?
Provide a familiar, visible and accessible uniformed presence
Listen and talk to the public, staff and local businesses and
communities to identify and tackle local concerns
Take effective and appropriate action and find long-term solutions
Communicate progress back to community
Be accountable to the community for actions
Provide personal safety and crime prevention advice
Carry out patrols to identify and deter suspicious activity
Source: http://www.met.police.uk/saferneighbourhoods/safertransport/index.htm
16. Building a trusted relationship with buyers
16
Meet buyer
expectations
Improve
feedback
system
Introduce
seller standards
Offer resolutions
Manage risk
from unknown
sellers
17. 17
Control
Unconditional trust
Confidencepath
3rd party Internal (eBay)Source of evidence
Control
Knowledge
Values
Interaction
Reputation
Coorperation
Understanding
Based on a model by Hazel, Lacohée, Piotr Cofta, Andy Phippen, Steven Furnell, 2009
Verification
Authentication
Monitoring
Privileges
Identity + Track Record
Trust, but verify
eBay never
gets beyond
this threshold
Building a trusted relationship with sellers
18. The principles applied – phishing education
Who will see this?
Users who received a spoof
email and clicked on a link
pointing to a phishing website.
If the site was reported and
taken down by the ISP, we‘ll
redirect the user to this
educational page.
Why do we do it?
PayPal has a page like this.
16K users were redirected
there (instead of landing on
one of the 21 phishing sites
that had been taken down).
This is an excellent moment
of truth, were we can educate
our users and they are willing
to listen (because it is highly
contextual).
19. The principles applied – integrated approach
2. The vitamins (e.g. Security Center)
Provide contextual educational
Trust messages
• We empower you to take control.
• We have the tools and resources
to keep you safe.
1. The aspirin (remedy flow)
Acknowledge and remedy pain
Trust messages
• We‘re watching out for you.
• It‘s quick and easy to
reinstate your account.
• We‘re there for you.
User scenario
eBay detects an ATO and strips the account of all privileges except for signing in. The compromised user signs in
with his or her credentials and learns about the situation.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Hi and good morning. I’m Andreas Woelk, and I work for eBay as a manager for user experience design.
I’ll give you a very high-level overview of what my team and I have been working on, and then I can get into more detail when we have our workshop this afternoon. Make sense? Okay, let’s get started.
[click]
About two and a half years ago the company asked me to take a closer look into what we could do from a design perspective to increase the perception of trust.
We had found that while we were actually doing a good job in keeping eBay a safe place to buy and sell online and keeping the bad guys at bay, the customer satisfaction scores didn’t reflect this. We’re using the NPS system – the net promoter score – where we ask our customers several questions and whether they would recommend eBay to a friend. One of the questions we ask is whether they consider eBay a safe place to shop online.
While eBay is a safe marketplace, a noteworthy number of our customers didn’t give us the highest marks. We had to realized that we have a perception issue.
[click]
And the goal of my project was to change this perception.
[click]
The way we went about it was:
First, gather quantitative and qualitative data to understand the root courses.
Second, define trust design principles and a trust framework.
And third, put it to the test.
[click]
Here’s the model that we were using. Two critical constituents:
One, It had to be user-centered.
And two, It had to be iterative to allow for corrections and improvements.
[click]
As you know there are many different definitions of trust. Sometimes they even contradict each other. For our purpose we agreed on a pragmatic approach, following the behavioral definition of trust by James Coleman.
[Read out]
In short: you take a risk and trust someone, because the other one acts in a trustworthy manner.
[click]
We also used the following statements as our guiding principles.
[Read out]
Pretty much common sense.
But before we even geared into research mode, I conducted an exercise with our executives and key stakeholders in the project. I asked: Ho do we want to be perceived by our customers?
[click]
When I joined the trust and safety team, I often heard that we were policing the site. My assumption was: if we continuously see ourselves as cops, we would act as cops and through our actions externalize this image to our users.
Now, a cop certainly comes in handy when you witness a robbery or attack. However, how would you feel when you’re jaywalking and a cop slaps you with a hefty fine? Or, if you’re being pulled over for going too fast and an armed highway patrolman approaches your car? - This can be quite intimidating. Do we want to convey this image? Also, can it be part of our brand personality? Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde? Well, that’s a different story.
So I asked, what could be an alternative to being a cop?
[click]
A park ranger? Park rangers are nice guys. True, they can kick you out of Yosemite if you light a campfire where you’re not allowed to. But by and large their role is to educate visitors. Is this something we can aspire to become? A park ranger?
It seems that these two personas are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Is there another alternative?
[click]
So I followed my European roots to London. They have what is officially called a community support officer, but is commonly know as a Bobby; a uniformed police presence, yet not carrying firearms. And something else is different: their responsibilities include working closely with the community. So is this our sweet spot?
Well, in reality, we need to wear different hats at different times, depending on the respective situation. For instance, wear your cop hat, when you’re cracking down on fraudsters. But put on your ranger hat, when you’re lenient toward new or inexperienced sellers, who unknowingly violated a listing policy.
We’ve conducted extensive research. For the sake of time – I know you all must be really hungry by now – let me fast-forward to some of the results, our design principles.
[click]
[Go through line items one by one and elaborate with examples.]
Offer incentives for taking responsibility: this may include being transparent about shipping cost, accepting returns and offering great customer service.
[click]
Let me show you an example of how we applied the principles.
[Skip if running out of time]
And that’s it. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, I’m here all day and happy to discuss my work. Now enjoy your lunch!
Meeting buyer expectations: increase buyers’ awareness and consideration of what they’re purchasing – and from whom
Feedback system: collect more accurate and predictive data from the buyers (DSR)
Seller standards: raise and sustain the level of performance of our sellers (and eliminating the bad)
Resolutions: make it right when something goes wrong
Risk management: manage risk from fraudulent and unknown users