Behavioral Implications and Emerging Legal Issues in Innovative and Digital Product Design
In The Cambridge Handbook of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of Commercial Law and Technology. Nancy Kim and Stacy-Ann Elvy (eds.)
ABSTRACT
Advances in technology increasingly inform how consumers make sense of the world and how organizations do business, resulting in complex dynamics between designers who define and craft products, companies who sell them, and consumers who use them. They also contribute to new legal and regulatory issues and potential market interventions related to risk mitigation and consumers’ susceptibility to errors of judgment due to cognitive biases. This chapter takes a behavioral, human-centered perspective to explore these emergent legal issues through three key lenses: (1) how contemporary digital products deliver consumer value, contribute to new forms of economic and noneconomic currency, and harness infrastructure that balances paternalistic oversight with consumer agency; (2) how digital products’ features shape consumer engagement with other individuals, products themselves, and the companies that produce these products; and finally, (3) how increasingly sophisticated data-driven technologies, such as generative AI and machine learning, create asymmetrical relationships between producers and consumers who often lack the conceptual models necessary to comprehend tradeoffs and terms of exchange fully.
More information about the book
Cite as: Schmidt, R. (2025). “Behavioral implications and emerging legal issues in innovative and digital product design,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of Commercial Law and Technology. Nancy Kim and Stacy-Ann Elvy (eds.), pp. 284-314. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.