Behavioural Design Fundamentals: Part 1 of 3
The Behavioural Design evolution
An introduction to how design can shape and change the way people think, feel, and behave.
In a world of ubiquitous technology, our behaviours are being shaped by smartphones, connected home devices, social media, entertainment services, cloud-based computing, voice UI, and artificial intelligence. What we think, feel, and do is being shaped and changed by an evolving culture of science and creativity: Behavourial Design.
In a three-part article, we’ll discover the systematic, methodological, and ethical principles of Behavioural Design. Once we reach the end of this series, we’ll be equipped with the fundamentals of what influences minds, shapes behaviours, and helps people make better decisions.
Here’s a flavour of the kind of themes we’ll be discussing:
- Introduction: Behavioural Design by definition, ethics, and the big ‘why’
- Toolbox of ideas: a collection of techniques used in Behavioural Design
- In the wild: structuring and testing ideas to achieve behavioural KPIs
Now let’s kickstart with the definition of Behavioural Design…
What is Behavioural Design?
Behavioural Design is about influencing or changing human behaviour by using external (the environment) and internal (the self) stimuli. For example, a physical cue might include a sales promotion that anchors you into buying a certain bottle of wine. Intrinsic motives, however, are learnt by the positive consequence of doing something, such as earning a reward in a game, which invokes a sense of urgency to do it again.
That’s a very basic answer to what Behavioural Design is; however, for a much deeper meaning, let’s first observe how it has evolved…
The Behavioural Design evolution
Behavioural Design has evolved from influencing high street buying habits to modern digital mediums, including websites and apps. Before the internet bubble, brand giants such as Coca-Cola, relied on print-based media to induce their target customers. For instance, a large billboard banner of a seductive model drinking a carbonated soft drink would prompt passers-by to reach for the nearest vending machine.
Today, people’s behaviours are being shaped by scaleable technology, including sensors packed in their smartphones
Nowadays, brands are shaping behaviours through technology. Take your smartphone, for example, the supercomputer is packed with sensors that detect your behaviour. Accelerometers monitor your movement. Cameras see what you’re doing. Microphones hear what you’re saying. GPS can find you within feet. Push notifications, pings, chimes, and vibrations, grab your attention — creepy!
For example, Apple recently revealed its Smartwatch handwashing detection feature, which encourages people to follow the WHO and CDC guidelines for washing their hands for at least 20 seconds. A combination of motion sensors, microphone, and on-device machine learning, is used to detect when you have started washing your hands. A 20-second countdown timer is activated once the hygiene action begins. If it recognises that you have stopped washing your hands before the time is up, it politely prompts you to keep going.
Behavioural Design has transcended from traditional print mediums to an evergrowing technical, scientific, creative, and cultural evolution. Companies are mining for customer data like it’s the new crude oil and use it to predict and shape behaviours. It is how we hunt and gather content through social media slot machine walls; thrive for love and belonging with ‘likes’ and tweets; invest time, money, and effort in return for tangible rewards. And it is these types of behaviours that feed the behavioural machines.
In Behavioural Design, the techniques and ideas outlined in the 1950s’ and 60s’ by Psychologists, Neuroscientists, and Economists, are being used to drive product engagement. Take social proof, for example, coined by Robert Cialdini, the theory is widely adapted by tech and retail companies to influence consumer behaviour. Whether you’re shopping online or researching for somewhere to eat, you’ll likely make decisions based on what other people are doing or saying.
Behavioural Design is here to drain our attention, reinforce our social circles, improve our health, entertain the uninspired state of mind, encourage self-fulfilment, and keep us on the right path for a better future. For product and marketing teams, it is a special strategy for shaping and influencing change by understanding how people think, feel, and behave.
That sounds great, but let’s now take a look under the hood and understand what really gets those Behavioural Design cogs turning…
Behavioural Design is a framework
For a detailed yet simplified description of what Behavioural Design is, we can lean on Behavioural experts Dr T. Dalton Combs PhD and Ramsay A. Brown.
In the 2018 publication Digital Behavioural Design, Combs and Brown provide the following high-level definition:
Behavioral Design is a framework for intentionally and systematically changing human behaviour through persuasive modifications of the physical and digital environment
Now let’s unpack that definition…
- Framework: a set of ideas and models that describe and predict behaviours
- Intentional: a useful design and thinking tool for creating products in a way to influence behaviour
- Systematic: ideas and theories derived from experiments conducted in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavioural Economics
- Change: the behaviours you want users to start and stop doing. Can we break bad habits and create more useful and ethical ones?
- Persuasion: insights on behaviour and strategies for influencing change. But do not confuse Behavioural Design with forcing people to form a habit
- Environment: the tools for modifying how environments, such as user interfaces, look and feel, how they cue and respond to behaviours
Designing for ethics
While Behavioural Design is a set of techniques for persuasion, it should not be confused with coercion. If you’re creating a product to change behaviours, then you need to consider how aligned the experience should be with what users really want.
For example, you sign up for a social media account so you can connect with friends and family as part of a digital community. You enjoy sharing content and willingly provide information about yourself to improve the experience. But then you begin to notice that your personal data is being used to fuel advertisement feeds. Does this sound familiar?
Social media brands use Behavioural Design techniques to induce more frequent usage in order to help increase advertisement revenue. This is likely to be poorly aligned with what users actually wanted: social connection and a better sense of community.
It is not about coercion. It is not about forcing people to change. Rather, when used properly, Behavioural Design gives your Product a toolbox of design patterns that are paths of least resistance —Combs and Brown
While Behavioural Design takes advantage of cognitive biases to motivate behaviour, it should not be used to deceive people into performing an action or even forming a habit that goes against their will (also known as dark patterns). The code of practice includes respecting the user’s intrinsic rights to freedom of choice, autonomy, and dignity.
To help us practice Behavioural Design techniques in an ethical way, Combs and Brown have defined three ethically-aligned values:
- Transparency: using scientifically validated techniques for encouraging behaviour change
- Alignment with social good: designed behaviours are good for the individual, their community, and society as a whole
- Alignment with a user’s desires: when intervention is well aligned with the kind of behavioural change that people want
Why Behavioural Design?
In an oversaturated and competitive market, keeping your customers engaged with your product or service requires a deeper understanding of their intrinsic needs. Knowing what makes them tick, itch, and react, is key to increasing product engagement and retention.
Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and LinkedIn, are some of the social media giants which adopt Behavioural Design as a special strategy to drive user interaction. While some of their ethics are questionable, they have invested time, money, and effort into understanding what really makes their target audiences click.
Behavioural Design can be used as a continuous strategy for increasing customer engagement and retention
Some of the world’s largest technology brands, including Apple and Google, embrace a Behavioural Design culture by changing the way how we purchase goods in stores. Take Apple Pay, for example, the payment service is made incredibly easy and rewarding to use, which in turn attracts users to build a long term behaviour.
Popular smart home devices, such as the Google Nest and Amazon Echo Dot, also pioneer ways to shape behaviours, influence choices, and help people make better and informed decisions. These are prime examples of how science and technology can guide us in creating habit-forming products which users can love.
Why Behavioural Design? It is here as a scientific and creative evolution that can help us build for products and services with purpose and delight. The more useful, enjoyable, and memorable we can engineer user experiences, then the more likely people will return to form long-term behaviours, and then become advocates for your brand.
Are you ready to join the Behavioural Design evolution?
Takeaways
In a world of ubiquitous technology, understanding behaviours is imperative for designing better and more meaningful experiences.
Although we have barely scratched the surface, we can immediately identify Behavioural Design as a strong strategy for driving product engagement and retention, and most importantly, customer satisfaction.
Whatever behaviour your designing to shape or change, ensure that your product is ethically aligned with your users’ best interests.
In part two, we’ll be looking at a Behavioural Design toolbox of techniques and ideas.
Special mentions
- Paul Humphrey – for your brilliant help on writing this article
- Boundless Mind — Digital Behavioural Design
- Kawaii icons (used in all illustrations) — Freepik
