I do not believe there is anything the website could do to persuade people out of an addiction; the best it could hope for is to persuade people to begin fighting an addiction. The web site really did not impact me personally, but it was not due to a design flaw in the web site. I am a non-smoker who does not have any plans to ever become a smoker. I grew up in a smoking household and am sensitive to cigarette smoke, so I spent much of my childhood with smoking-related illness. A website that tries to prevent people from smoking does not have to be very persuasive for me to listen to its message.

One of the things that I think the website failed to do, which would have made it more persuasive, was to work with the ABCs of attitude. I think it missed the opportunity to really impact the affect that one feels upon encountering a smoker. I remember...

The photo showed a very unattractive older woman, smoking a cigarette, with a tagline that read something like "Smoking is glamorous." It associated a very negative affect with the concept of smoking. The proposed pictures of diseased organs that are supposed to be featured on cigarette boxes would seem to have this negative impact. Instead, the website showed non-graphic images and presented a lot of useful information, but without a single image that created a visceral gut-punch about smoking. Without creating the visceral emotional response to smoking, I am not sure that the website has the power to move beyond affective response to behavior response and eventually cognitive response. Therefore, I would suggest that the website do more to trigger affective response.