The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort

The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort

Nunes, Dréze . 2014. (View Paper → )

This research documents a phenomenon we call the endowed progress effect whereby people provided with artificial advancement towards a goal exhibit greater persistence towards reaching the goal. By converting a task requiring eight steps into a task requiring 10 steps, but with two steps already complete, the task is reframed as one that has been undertaken and incomplete rather than not yet begun. This increases the likelihood of task completion and decreases completion time…

Relevant to product managers and designers who’re looking at their new user experience (NUX) and onboarding flows. We often throw users into multi-step onboarding workflows - it seems like a no-brainer to make use of this effect.