At the recent Computer-Human Interaction conference, CHI99, some 2,300 computer technologists, designers and cognitive psychologists and others in related disciplines gathered to discuss the perceived credibility of computers and the information they disseminate. Among the most progressive thinkers on this subject is B.J. Fogg, director of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, who called on the CHI community to "be concerned about the credibility of the computer products we create, research and evaluate."

As pioneers of a nascent discipline called captology (see www.captology.org), Fogg and a handful of other visionaries are exploring the theory, design and analysis of computers and related technologies as instruments of persuasion.

As computing's fate is woven ever more tightly to the Web, the credibility not only of the downloaded information but also of the enabling technology has taken a hit, said Fogg. He worries that the popularization of the Internet will assign the cultural myth of the "credible computer" to the dustheap. Taken to the extreme, Web-based content could come to be regarded as the follow-on to the cable-TV infomercial or the supermarket tabloid-and the hardware that enables the Web could be viewed as the next-generation idiot box. From there, we could expect some critics to seek to kill the messenger-to damn the desktop, mobile or handheld appliance itself for its role in conveying the non-credible.

It therefore behooves designers of embedded products and applications to realize the responsibility with which they are entrusted and to think their designs all the way through to the user's possession. Favorable performance and price won't mean much if users place no confidence in either the machine or the application, ultimately walking away from both.

Hardware and software engineers need to talk early in the design cycle on how best to marry the application to the architecture for the most pleasing and positively persuasive results. Content certainly counts, but the presentation of the content is critical to how it is perceived. Device architectures and content-creation tools are therefore central to the goal.

Maybe that's why B.J. Fogg isn't satisfied just to study captology but is doing something about it. He has recently taken a position as director of research and innovation at consumer-electronics giant Casio, while remaining director of the Stanford lab.

Drop him a line (bjfogg@casioresearch.com) to talk about how and why positive persuasion starts with credible design.

-Nicolas Mokhoff is editor, special issues, and executive producer, EDTN technical center.