The 4 Types of Branding (and the one that YOU really need)
Geoffrey B.
Branding
Introduction
In UX, we’re often told: "reduce friction", "get to the point", "remove steps". But what if, sometimes, it was precisely the effort that gave the experience its value?
Welcome to the world of the Labor Effect. This cognitive bias, well known to behavioural psychologists, shows that the more a user invests in a task, the more they value what they get out of it.
In this article, we explain why and how this principle can transform your forms or product journeys — provided it is orchestrated properly.
1. What is the Labor Effect? (And why your users like it when they do a bit of work – yes, really)
At Dafolle, we love it when a cognitive bias blurs the line between design and storytelling. And the Labor Effect is a gift: it tells you that a form, when it asks for a bit of elbow grease, can become downright desirable.
The Labor Effect (or IKEA effect) refers to our tendency to place more value on what we have helped create. Even if the effort is modest, the sense of ownership increases with participation.
But in a finer-grained version, we also talk about Labor Illusion, a concept explored by researchers Kruger, Wirtz, Van Boven and Altermatt. Their study shows that when a service makes visible the work it is doing for us, we judge it to be more competent, more efficient — even if the result is identical.
If a system tells you “I’m looking for the best options for you…”,
Even if it takes 3 seconds to produce a generic result,
You find it more credible than an instant engine with no feedback.
It is not just the effort provided by the user that creates value. It is also the impression that “someone” — or “something” — is working for them. And in UX, that is behavioural magic.
2. Perceived effort = perceived value (or how to make your user believe your interface is sweating for them)
When a user makes an effort to personalise a product, share information or answer questions, they become emotionally invested.
But what changes the game is that even a simulated effort on the system side can trigger the same perception of value :
