Designing trust into online experiences

TLDR: A ncient social traditions were designed to elicit trust during uncertain encounters, but for many users, strategic trust is difficult to generate, shaken easily, and once shaken extremely difficult to rebuild.

Abstract: A ncient social traditions were designed to elicit trust during uncertain encounters. Handshaking demonstrated the absence of weapons. Clinking of glasses evolved from pouring wine back and forth to prove it was not poisoned. Now, new social traditions are needed to enhance cooperative behaviors in electronic environments supporting e-commerce, e-services, and online communities. Since users of online systems can’t savor a cup of tea with an electronic rug merchant, designers must develop strategies for facilitating e-commerce and auctions. Since users can’t make eye contact and judge intonations with an online lawyer or physician, designers must create new social norms for professional services. Since users can’t stroll through online communities encountering neighbors with their children, designers must facilitate the trust that enables collective action. In parallel, consumer groups must be vigorous in monitoring and reporting deceptions and disreputable business practices. Political scientist Eric Uslaner of the University of Maryland calls trust “the chicken soup of the social sciences. It brings us all sorts of good things—from a willingness to get involved in our communities to higher rates of economic growth ... to making daily life more pleasant. Yet, like chicken soup, it appears to work somewhat mysteriously” [5]. He tries to sort out the mystery by distinguishing between moral trust, or the durable optimistic view that strangers are well-intentioned, and strategic trust, or the willingness of two people to participate in a specific exchange (see Uslaner’s “Social Capital and the Net” in this section). Trust facilitates cooperative behavior. It is a complex term that has generated dozens of doctoral dissertations, not only in sociology and political science, but now in information systems research as well. There are enough dimensions to trust and its failures to keep scholars and philosophers busy for some time, but e-commerce, e-services, and online community designers need a guide to practical action [4]. The designer’s goal is to engage users quickly and establish and preserve strategic trust under challenging situations. But for many users, strategic trust is difficult to generate, shaken easily, and once shaken extremely difficult to rebuild. Strategic trust is fragile. The extensive literature on trust offers multiple perspectives. In his politically oriented book Trust, Francis Fukuyama, a former U.S. State Department analyst, claims: “Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of the members of that community” [2]. This compact definition embodies several key con-