Persuasive technology in African context: deconstructing persuasive techniques in an African online marketplace

Research has shown the effectiveness of persuasive technologies in promoting desirable behaviors in many domains such as marketing and eCommerce. However, according to a recent meta-review, most of the existing studies of persuasive technologies have focused on people from the developed countries. There is still a dearth of research on persuasive technology (PT) application to eCommerce, in the African context. Therefore, the overall objective of this paper is to study an African online marketplace to identify persuasive technology (PT) techniques used to optimize customer experiences on Jumia (an African eCommerce site). It is essential to evaluate how PT techniques were used to motivate desirable behaviours in the African context. Consequently, eCommerce conducted an expert evaluation to deconstruct what persuasive techniques were used in Jumia using the Persuasive System Design (PSD) framework. We also analyzed how each of the PT techniques was operationalized on the Jumia eCommerce. As a secondary objective, we conducted a study of 112 users to determine their awareness of the use of PT techniques in Jumia. The results Jumia employed some persuasive techniques to attract and retain customers. It also shows that customers are aware of and appreciated the fact that certain PT techniques were operationalized on the Jumia site. Finally, we compared our findings with that of a similar study from the Western culture. We contribute to the AfriCHI, Persuasive Technology, and HCI community in general by establishing the applicability of persuasive techniques in African context and suggesting some design implications for eCommerce sites.