Turn off the amazement of consumerism
Inspiration
We browse Amazon for long periods of time without getting much done and had our time wasted. We imagined that for people with Compulsive Buying Disorder, it is not just time they will be wasting, but actual dollars spent on things they do not really need, and often the accompanying guilt that comes after.
In fact, 5.8% of US population has Compulsive Buying Disorder. We believe that behavioural change can come about if we were to edit the presentation of websites in different ways, so as to reduce the visual impact of online shopping, as well as give small nudges to user behaviour.
What it does
Before
After
It provides small nudges for the users to reconsider their purchasing decisions and incorporates “inconvenient design” to make it less easy for people with Compulsive Buying Disorder to act upon their shopping urges.
This was done using a chrome extension by modifying the Amazon webpage in various ways:
We removed the one click buy button from the Amazon pages
We removed all the suggested, recommended, sponsored items and advertisements
We replaced the price of the item with something more tangible, like gallons of gas or % of utility bills that can be paid for by the money.
Every 5 visits to an Amazon product site, we prompt the user of the time they spent on Amazon.
At the checkout page, we remind the users that they have spent however much money, buy in a pop up box they have to physically close.
How we built it
We dedicated a half a day of researching on target background and current treatment methods. This would guide us on how we should modify the user interface and user experience on Amazon’s sites to curb compulsive buying behavior. We then spent the rest of the day / night building the Chrome extension, solving for edge cases, and fixing bugs.
Challenges we ran into
So it turns out that Amazon's listing pages are not standardised. For the most part, our code works. However on specific webpages, we need to write exception handling cases to catch some of these cases. This turned out to be where we spent quite a bit of time on...
Accomplishments that we're proud of
It was pretty gratifying to be able to build a fairly simple yet effective tool to address compulsive buying disorder in such a short time. We actually installed the extension within our own browsers as a reminder of our buying habits.
What we learnt
Amazon and other shopping platforms make it very easy for consumers to make purchases on their sites. This makes it even more difficult for people with Compulsive Buying Disorder to break from the cycle.
What's next for Amazoff
We are looking into implementing filters using reverse image APIs to let through daily essential items and also extend our reach to other shopping platforms.
Also we believe we could port our platform over to other websites that allow users to buy items. Webpages such as Aliexpress also promote consumerism which spurs the behaviour of people with Compulsive Buying Disorder.
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