The Door in the Face
A familiar situation
Will you donate $1000 to our organization? [Response is no].
Oh. Well could you donate $10?”- or how about this one -
Can you help me do all this work?
Well can you help me with this bit?”
- from Wikipedia -
Many of us will reluctantly answer yes to the second question, due to an effect called “door in the face” by social psychologists. We’ve fallen victim to this powerful technique which is readily employed by salesman, fundraisers, and even our friends.
But, are you familiar with the opposite effect, called the foot in the door? It’s another trap which is less known and trickier to pull off. Used correctly, it can help you design a survey that creates increased conversion rates.
The foot in the door effect
This technique is employed by salesman and studied by experts in persuasion. Here’s how it usually works in practice:
*doorbell*
Salesman: Hi ma’am, I hate to bother you today but could I have a glass of water from your sink?
Resident: uhhh.. sure. (I’m a decent person)
*resident leaves and returns with a glass of water*
Salesman: *gulp* Thank you. And my isn’t that a difficult stain on your rug over there??….
This is something slightly different than the door-in-the-face. Here we have a person who is asked for a small request (glass of water), followed by a large request, instead of vice versa. In this case, it is likely the request-ee will comply with the request-er if the request is structured with the larger favor asked for second.
My venture into making and taking surveys
What makes us more or less likely to complete a survey?
First of all, the initial survey question should be so easy to answer that no person will have trouble or be baffled. “Are you familiar with such and such website?” is a question that a reply of yes or no easy to provide.
More importantly, a survey would do well to leave the rest of the questions on a separate page. By allowing the survey taker to click the “next” button early on, you get them to make a psychological commitment to the survey. This is GENIUS!
It plays off the foot in the door, an effect we are familiar with! Answering the first survey question is the small, easy request. Once completed, its like a foot in the door and cognitive dissonance kicks in (’I already gave the survey writer this much of my time, it wouldn’t be THAT much more to continue’). By agreeing to a small request, it would be a form of contradiction to disagree with a larger request.
Although clicking the next button reveals the hidden questions (which are potentially more complicated and time-consuming), the user has already made an action that is buying what the survey-writers are selling.
A survey may take a lot longer to complete (and even includes a re-direct to another non-survey page — a usability no-no) but if the questions are put onto separate pages, it is more successful than a survey design that is a wall of text. Theirs is brilliant in their deceptiveness – KEEPING IT SIMPLE ON THE FRONT PAGE.
After discussing the two effects, which work in opposite ways, I pose the question: which is more effective?