Evaluating the Use of Persuasive Design Cards for Novice Designers

This paper examines the use of physical persuasive cards for novice designers in ideation sessions. Through experimental study, we found that the tools a designer uses affects the kind of outcome they will get. The observations from four workshop sessions indicate that persuasive cards can be a two-edged sword, as they can affect the design process both positively and negatively. Additionally, in this paper, certain insights are highlighted when it came to how novice designers interacted with the cards. One of the most interesting behaviors witnessed was how participants were depending on the cards while debating their own ideas, and in some situations, neglecting their own or their colleagues’ ideas as they believed the cards knew better. Moreover, this study was able to report “The Commonality Effect” as a new finding, as session outcomes from with-card teams showed a higher rate of repetitiveness and commonality in the persuasive ideas. This paper provides 10 design card heuristics that can be used as a guideline when it comes to producing and evaluating card-based tools