You might be wondering why I, a
tech columnist, would write about tipping. The reason is that tipping is no
longer just a socioeconomic and ethical issue about the livelihoods of service
workers.
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It has also become a tech problem that is
rapidly spiraling out of control, thanks to the proliferation of digital
payment products from companies like Square and Toast. Since payment apps and
touch screens make it simple for merchants to preset gratuity amounts, many
businesses that did not ordinarily ask for tips now do.
And many consumers feel pressured to oblige
or do not notice the charges. This phenomenon — known as “guilt tipping” — was
compounded in recent years when more privileged professionals shelled out extra
to help essential workers weather the pandemic. But even as businesses have
somewhat returned to normal, the gratuity requests have remained steadfast.
Digital payment systems… take advantage of a design principle that influences consumer behavior: The default is the path of least resistance.
Tipping practices may become part of a
broad crackdown on so-called junk fees, extra costs that businesses tack on to
products and services while adding little to no value. The US Federal Trade
Commission, which announced an investigation into the practices last year, said
people could experience “junk fee shock” when companies used deceptive tech
designs to inflate costs at the end of a purchase.
I have felt the pain and awkwardness of
seemingly arbitrary tip requests. I was recently taken aback when a grocery
store’s iPad screen suggested a tip between 10 percent and 30 percent — a
situation that was made more unpleasant when I hit the “no tip” button and the
cashier shot me a glare.
When a motorcycle mechanic asked for a
gratuity with his smartphone screen, I felt pressured to tip because my safety
depended on his services. (It still felt wrong, because I had already paid for
his labor.)
I shared these instances, along with
stories I had read all over the web about consumers outraged by abnormal
tipping requests, with user-interface experts who work on tech and financial
products. All agreed that while it was good that payment services had increased
gratuities for service workers who rely on them, the technology created a bad
experience when consumers felt coerced by businesses that did not normally
expect tips.
“If your users are not happy, it’s going to
come back and bite you,” said Tony Hu, a director at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology who teaches courses on product design. “Ideally, they
should be tipping for an excellent experience.”
Based on my conversations with design
gurus, there is an upside to all of this. If we focus on the tech design
aspects of tipping, we can overcome the pressure of tipping in the same way
that we grapple with issues like digital privacy. Let me explain.
The devil is in the defaultsIn 2013, Square released a point-of-sales
product that replaced cash registers by letting vendors input an order into a
tablet and letting customers swipe a credit card to add their signature and
tip. Square has said its products have led to big increases in tips for many
businesses. Its technology has since been widely copied by many brands, and
traditional cash registers are a rare sighting.
The “custom tip” and “no tip” buttons are roughly the same size as the tipping buttons. If the opt-out buttons were extremely difficult to find, this would be an abusive practice known as “dark patterns”.
A key driver of the success of digital
payment systems, design experts said, is that they take advantage of a design
principle that influences consumer behavior: The default is the path of least
resistance.
Payment technologies allow merchants to
show a set of default tipping amounts — for example, buttons for 15 percent, 20
percent, and 30 percent, along with the “no tip” or “custom tip” button. That
setup makes it simplest for us to choose a generous tip rather than a smaller
one or no tip at all.
Plenty of studies document this type of
behavior. Ted Selker, a product design veteran who worked at IBM, Xerox PARC,
and elsewhere, led past research on encouraging people to register to vote. He
found that they were more likely to register if that option was preselected
when they filled out applications for driver’s licenses and address changes. In
other words, people were much more likely to not opt out than they were to opt
in.
A Square spokesperson said the company’s
payment technology does not allow merchants to preselect a tip amount (except
when tips are automatically added for large groups in a restaurant, an industry
standard). But in my experience, some of Square’s copycats allow merchants to
do so.
A broader issue remains: When businesses
that do not ordinarily get tips use technology to present a tipping screen,
they require the consumer to opt out.
“It’s coercion,” Selker said.
On the bright side, the gratuity screens are
not considered deceptive, said Harry Brignull, a user-experience consultant in
Britain, because the “custom tip” and “no tip” buttons are roughly the same
size as the tipping buttons. If the opt-out buttons were extremely difficult to
find, this would be an abusive practice known as “dark patterns”.
Treat tipping the way you treat techI recommend approaching tipping the same
way that you might approach technology: Be wary of the defaults, and decide
when it is right to opt out.
The best way to avoid feeling controlled by a screen is to tip in cash whenever a gratuity feels necessary.
The best way to avoid feeling controlled by
a screen is to tip in cash whenever a gratuity feels necessary.
If you are unhappy about how a merchant
uses tech to demand tips, you can also boycott it (though this might be
impractical now that so many businesses use this tech). That is not too
different from the action of people who deactivated their Facebook accounts
when they felt their privacy was violated.
Even design experts are occasionally caught
off guard by the defaults on tipping screens. Hu of MIT said he had recently been
presented with tipping options of $1, $3, and $5 after a $10 Uber ride. He
chose the middle button, $3, before realizing he would normally tip the driver
20 percent, or $2.
“It’s psychological mind games,” he said.
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