May the Force be with you

Ding! These days, it seems that we live in a sea of nonstop, never-ending mobile notifications: every waking moment, we receive buzzes and pings that remind that we have to do things or be somewhere or respond to someone about something. Ding!

Zhenhui Jack Jiang

1 Jun 2023

But before you put your device in “do not disturb” mode, or throw your phone into the nearest body of water out of frustration, it would be wise to remember that some of these notifications are actively trying to help us lead healthier lives. However, because notifications are frequently ignored and often do not achieve their desired purpose, researchers are working hard to find new ways to make them more effective.

The importance of touch modes

Along with two colleagues, Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang, Professor of Innovation and Information Management at the University of Hong Kong, authored a paper titled “Pushing Yourself Harder: The Effects of Mobile Touch Modes on Users’ Self-Regulation”. The authors examined if a specific type of mobile interaction – either a tap or a press on a smartphone – would make people using health-related mobile applications (apps) more likely to perform healthy behaviours.

But…why? Touching your phone is touching your phone – how much force you use doesn’t matter, does it? Actually, according to Jiang et al, it does. The theory behind this is “embodied cognition”, defined by the American Psychological Association as “the thesis that the human mind is largely determined by the structures of the human body (morphology, sensory and motor systems) and its interactions with the physical environment.” Simply put: we are more than our brains. Our thoughts, our “selves” even, are determined by our experiences in the physical world.

Embodied cognition theory

Early experiments classified these experiences as metaphors, like “trust is warm”, where participants were asked to hold cups of coffee. Those holding warm cups were more likely to judge a person with whom they interacted as being trustworthy than those holding cold cups. Or “future is ahead”, in which people were told to think about the future or the past – those thinking of the future tended to lean forward, those thinking of the past leaned back. Or “important is heavy” – people holding heavier clipboards judged currencies, opinions and leaders mentioned on these clipboards to be more important than those on lighter clipboards.

Our brains then use these metaphors to create automatic associations between actions and attitudes, which then become memories that “can be subliminally activated when similar body states are experienced”. So if someone, for example, associates the action of reaching out for an item they like with a positive feeling, they are then more likely to experience positive feelings when reaching out for other things.

Force and touchscreen interaction

Jiang and his co-writers believe that embodied cognition applies to touchscreens too. “As a fundamental way of interacting with the physical world, force is often applied when we make an effort to achieve goals”, they say. Their background research indicated that when online shopping, touch-based interactions, rather than more traditional mouse clicking, gave shoppers a “greater sense of ownership and [increased their] purchase intentions.” One may see this in movies and on television as well – when the hero dramatically struggles to enter a code to rescue someone, or the hackers finally break through a firewall, it is often depicted through the use of force: furious typing or jabbing a touch screen, not passively moving a mouse.

One of their hypotheses was that interacting with a device with more force – i.e. pressing comparatively hard on a touchscreen rather than lightly tapping – can trigger the mental metaphors mentioned above, and that this extra force can induce people to make positive health-related decisions; specifically, self-regulation decisions like ordering healthier food options on a restaurant tablet, or using mobile health apps that track fitness levels or calorie intake.

Their second hypothesis focused on how people interpret and use the information they infer from interacting with their device and how this is related to their health knowledge and health orientation. Jiang et al’s background research suggested that the effectiveness of health interventions is often affected by how much people know about health (their health knowledge), and how motivated they are to seek health improvements or avoid health hazards (their health orientation).

People with more health knowledge “tend to feel more responsible for their health and well-being”, while people’s health orientation falls into two categories – promotion-focused, which involves “striving for ideals, aspirations and rewards”; and prevention-focused, which “is associated with the need for safety and involves…responsible behaviours”. Jiang et al conjectured that people who used more force would be more likely to have a higher health knowledge and have a promotion-focused health orientation.

To test these hypotheses, the researchers devised three unique experiments. The first experiment examined resisting temptation, the second, exercise goals and the third, hygiene education.

Three unique experiments

The background to the first study, “Touch Modes and Beverage Choice”, was the idea that it is often challenging for people to pass over pleasurable but less healthy foods in favour of healthy but less tasty ones. Outside a busy university cafeteria, the experiment administrators randomly asked passing students if they wanted a free drink. They were given a smartphone with information about four different drinks – two “healthy but not tasty” and two “tasty but not healthy” – and asked to choose the one they most wanted. This action requires self-regulation, which typically needs strong willpower, so the experiment was designed to measure willpower and capture product choices, using the hypothesis that pressing with force, rather than tapping, would make it more likely people would choose a healthier option.

The 120 participants were equally and randomly assigned to either a pressing or tapping group. The “tappers” could tap on each drink to get a short description and then again to get detailed ingredient information, which included calorie and sugar content. The “pressers” pressed on beverage images with a certain amount of force to generate these pop-ups, and then pressed again on the pop-ups to access drink details. Simplifying the results somewhat, the “pressers” were more likely to chose the healthy (but not tasty) drinks than the “tappers”.

In the second experiment, “Touch Modes and Physical Exercises”, the researchers used a mobile fitness app to measure self-regulation in terms of exercise goals and exercise amounts; specifically if the participants were “willing to forgo short-term comfort and exert themselves to achieve long-term health benefits”. Participants at a gym were first asked to fill in a survey that measured their health goals, then shown different short articles written from either a promotion or a prevention health orientation. Afterwards, they were given a smartphone with an experimental mobile app on it and asked to set their exercise goals by either tapping or pressing. Once again, they found that pressing led to a greater increase in motivation, and those who pressed also set higher exercise goals for themselves. They also found that participants who read the promotion-oriented articles were more likely to press, rather than tap.

The last experiment, “Touch Modes and Health Education”, aimed to show that pressing leads to higher self-regulation as it induces greater overall motivation. The focus of this cleverly-designed study was personal hygiene behaviour. Participants were told that they would be doing two tasks – hygiene education and hygiene product recommendation. For the first task, they were divided into three categories, tapping, pressing and holding. They were then given a smartphone with a mock personal hygiene education app with eight topics that they needed to read about and then tap, press or hold a button that stated their commitment to maintaining that practice.

The second task gathered the participants in a room where supposedly they were helping choose hygiene products like masks and hand sanitiser for the university to distribute. While the participants were focused on this task, in reality they were being observed by the experimenters, who were checking if the participants were observing the hygiene practices to which they had committed in task one – i.e. staying socially distant, not shaking hands, avoiding touching their face when wearing a mask, and so on. Lapses in hygiene practices were noted and participants received a score between zero and four.

Again, the experiment determined that the pressers had “won” – they had the highest self-regulation intention and were more likely to observe the hygiene practices. Another important finding from the third experiment was that pressing was more significant than either holding or tapping – this clearly showed that the exertion of force was the important variable, not the duration of contact with the screen.

The Force is a powerful ally

Essentially, the three experiments worked together, providing converging evidence that pressing touchscreens when making decisions about health actually increases self-regulation, especially in people who know a lot about health and who have a positive health orientation.

That’s great, but as a layperson might ask: “Is there a point to this? Does this research mean outside of the academic context? Will this knowledge lead to anything useful?” “Absolutely!” is the answer to all three questions.

These findings have several theoretical implications that build on current research and set the stage for future discoveries. First, in the domain of healthcare information technology: the study highlights the importance of self-regulation when maintaining and improving health, since even when people are aware of what healthy behaviours they need to perform, they still “may fail to consistently perform [them] when facing temptations or physical challenges”. The results show that subliminal “nudges”, like pressing hard on a touch screen to access stronger motivation, may help people overcome temptations.

The study also opens the door to research on other types of mobile interaction, like gesturing or adopting a certain posture, that may be used to trigger other forms of “embodied interaction”. As human-computer interactions move away from the mouse towards touchscreens and wearables and virtual reality devices, the movements associated with these interactions “can also trigger thoughts about prior experiences” and the memories that are activated can further affect decisions and behaviours.

There are practical implications to the study too, particularly in terms of force-based interaction technology. By proving that pressing a touch screen leads to positive results, Jiang and his co-authors are giving digital designers a clear direction, especially in products where users need to overcome urges or temptations – like work-related productivity apps or education apps where concentration is necessary.

The finding that self-regulation is more effective in people with more health knowledge and a positive health orientation will also affect the marketing industry. App makers now have access to modern marketing tools like creating customer profiles through search histories and mobile interaction data analysis, for example. These methods provide better and more accurate data than blunt market surveys, and allow app makers to provide more relevant health-related content to users. When used in combination with force-based interaction, this accurate information might well make the marketing and use of health-related products way more effective.

Buzz!

So you see, all these notifications do have a purpose, at least most of them. Next time you use a health app, or select something on a touchscreen at a restaurant, remember that someone has thought long and hard about your interaction, and that interface has been designed with care and attention. And also remember, if you really want it, press hard – use the force, as the famous saying goes.

Ding!

About this Research

Yang (Alison) Liu, Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang, Ben C. F. Choi (2022). Pushing Yourself Harder: The Effects of Mobile Touch Modes on Users’ Self-Regulation. Information Systems Research. Forthcoming.

Read the original article

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Translation

Long held assumptions about the mutually incremental relationship between quantities and discounts have been upended by new research. The rule of thumb that the bigger the purchase quantity, the higher the discount is shown not to hold true for medium-sized customers buying products such as semiconductors, with implications for other products and industries.

Pile them high and sell them cheap. Buy more, save more. These slogans, and the thinking that lies behind them, have been accepted principles of product sales and marketing for generation.

The logic seems indisputable from the points of view of both the seller and manufacturer and that of the buyers. If a seller or manufacturer makes a large number of identical items and a single customer wants to buy a large part of this total production, then that buyer will receive the goods at a cheaper price than a buyer who wishes to buy a much smaller amount of the same product. The accepted theory has been that the seller is eager to dispose of his stock as quickly and as easily as possible, and so a big customer will get a better deal. By the same logic, it follows that customers who buy progressively smaller amounts of the same product will receive progressively smaller discounts.

However, the underlying premise behind these assumptions – that the bigger the purchase, the bigger the discount – has now been shown to be valid for only part of the story. In a new study by Wei ZHANG, Sriram DASU and Reza AHMADI entitled “Higher Prices for Larger Quantities? Nonmonotonic Price-Quantity Relations in B2B Markets,” published in 2017 by the Institute for Operational Research and the Management Sciences in Maryland, USA, the first part of the established belief holds true: the biggest customers do receive the biggest discounts. These customers remain the most valuable to a seller or manufacturer as they account for the bulk of sales. They are therefore typically able to use their size and bandwidth to exert pressure successfully on the seller to get a large discount.

The research focused on investigating the impact of a buyer’s purchase quantity on the discount offered. In this case, the seller was a microprocessor company selling semi-conductors, which are a short-life cycle product. The company negotiates with each of its buyers to set a price for the product. The buyers are mainly large electronic consumer goods manufacturers. In line with established beliefs, the research showed that the discounts received by smaller customers increased in line with the quantities they purchased, and the smaller the quantity they purchased, the smaller the discount they received.

What is unexpected is the experience of medium sized buyers. According to established logic, these customers would be expected to receive bigger discounts on their purchase price than smaller buyers. But this is not the case. In fact, the researchers found that as the quantities bought increase, the discount decreases, and then increases again for the biggest quantities.

“Contrary to our intuition, larger quantities can actually lead to higher prices,” say ZHANG, DASU and AHMADI.Thus, while previous beliefs of a bigger purchase quantity meaning a bigger discount would have resulted in a curve heading steadily north-eastwards, the results of ZHANG, DASU and AHMADI’s studies is an N-shaped curve. This unexpected result is rooted in the importance of capacity to the seller and its impact on the price negotiation process, explain ZHANG, DASU and AHMADI.

To understand the importance of capacity in price setting requires a switch in focus from the buyer’s mind-set to that of the seller. The seller or manufacturer is not concerned solely with getting the best possible price for the product, they also place a value on capacity.

‘’Large buyers accelerate the selling process and small buyers are helpful in consuming the residual capacity,” write ZHANG and his team. “However, satisfying midsized buyers may be costly because supplying these buyers can make it difficult to utilise the remaining capacity, which may be too much for small buyers but not enough for large buyers. Therefore, midsized buyers are charged a “premium.”

To get the best price for all his products, the seller needs to avoid transactions of a medium size and instead plan his sales based on a rationing decision. The rationing decision depends on the remaining capacity level, purchase quantity, demand distribution and the buyer’s profit margin before subtracting the cost of this product. The calculation can be done by following a dynamic capacity rationing formula devised by the researchers. The formula is based on the need for the seller to find a balance between controlling the capacity allocated to each buyer while still offering a capacity range that is acceptable to the buyer.

Ultimately, ZHANG & Co, say, “The seller should reserve capacity for buyers who are willing to pay more.”

The pertinence of the research is clearly of most use to firms manufacturing or selling semi-conductors. This is a highly competitive industry with several unique features and is characterised in particular by fast changing technological developments. In the semi-conductor industry, manufacturing costs are high and lead times are long and these factors lead to inflexible capacities. It is common practice in the industry for sellers to allocate capacity to different product lines based on demand forecasts and to start work on the related production several months ahead of the planned delivery date. Customers arrive sequentially and differ mainly in the quantities of product they order. Although products have a set price, the actual price paid is typically agreed after a process of negotiation, with big buyers usually driving a hard bargain. Because of the nature of the business, negotiation on prices is inevitable, explain the researchers.

“Buyers know that the marginal production cost of microprocessors is low and that sellers are eager to discount prices to fully utilise their capacities. Moreover, buyers can allocate their business among competing sellers.”

But while buyers may have an advantage when it comes to price, sellers often have an advantage when it comes to selling and controlling capacity. Buyers are free to meet their needs by buying from different semiconductor suppliers, but they tend to decide on suppliers early on in the purchasing process. This is because the technical features offered by different suppliers vary, and once selected, these features will impact the design of the buyers’ products and will be difficult and costly to change. That means that buyers tend to keep to their chosen supplier.

The lessons that can be drawn from the study may also be useful to some degree to other businesses and products. Inflexible capacities are also a feature of many businesses in the tourism industry, for example, although the researchers note there are different characteristics and constraints involved – for example, hotel rooms do not go out of date in the same way that semiconductor products become obsolete. Hotel rooms, airline and coach seats are all fixed number items that the seller or owner needs to sell in quantities to his best advantage. The main customers in these industries include bulk buyers such as travel agencies and resellers who want to buy in large quantities but who also want to negotiate the best prices. As in the semi conductor business, the individually agreed deals are closely interconnected, with the price and quantity agreed for one buyer impacting the price and quantity to be agreed for the remaining buyers. The researchers recommend that sellers develop a price-quantity analysis model that can help them optimise their prices. As with semi-conductors, the key point for the seller is the need to control the quantity being sold to each buyer before negotiating the price.

“Basically, given that each transaction has an impact on subsequent transaction, a good model of the price-quantity relation is necessary for the optimisation of the trade-off between the profit from the current buyers and that of future buyers,” they explain.

Contributing Reporter: Liana Cafolla

Source: Wei Zhang, Sriram Dasu, Reza Ahmadi (2017). Higher Prices for Larger Quantities? Nonmonotonic Price–Quantity Relations in B2B Markets. Management Science 63(7): 2108-2126.

https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2454

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