We all seem to be talking about changing behaviour through good design…but changing behaviour is actually really hard.  Working as a psychologist in a detox unit at the start of my career has admittedly shaped my view of what it takes to change someone’s behaviour; and whilst I learnt it certainly isn’t impossible, it often takes time. Combine this with the fact that most human behaviour is not considered to be overly planned, with ‘conscious thought’ playing, at best, a small role in shaping our choices…things start to become a little tricky for us as designers.  So how do we start to make sense of what influences someone to change their behaviour, given we are often charged with creating designs that are ultimately intended to encourage, if not drive, some form of behaviour change?

Behaviour Change, One Step at a Time(r)

An egg timer – the catalyst of change

Can you recall when you last changed your behaviour and maintained that change for an extended period of time?  The last time I can recall was triggered a few years ago when I received a four minute egg timer in the post.  Our state was then in the height of a drought, and a local government agency (Melbourne Water) had sent the egg-timer out to encourage sustainable water use.

When I first opened the envelope I promptly put it next to our bathroom sink in the hope it would make my young children brush their teeth longer than their current ten second swill.  Not surprisingly, it didn’t.  So it sat near the sink for several months until one day I looked at it and thought, “how about I actually put this in the shower…”.

Almost immediately some things happened.  Firstly I had to learn to shower within the four minutes it allowed.  This took a surprising amount of time and effort.  However, once I had mastered that, I felt incredibly guilty if I stayed in the shower for any longer than the time it allowed, and so was compelled to the timer. (Now, for the few rare times I am under the shower for longer than four minutes, I have a mental bank of time in credit so I can justify the extravagance.)

What’s fascinating is that while it took a while for the device to find its way to the intended context, once it was there the initiative to change was almost immediate, and the result easy to maintain.  The presence of such a small thing, positioned in the right context, made such a huge impact on my behaviour.

Why It Matters to Designers

Design has always facilitated change in behaviour, especially in the area of technology, but it seems lately that design for behaviour change is in the forefront of people’s awareness.  Part of the challenge is understanding what actually influences someone to change their behaviour in the first place.

As experience design researchers we quite often focus on what people do, and why they do it, so we can incrementally design better products, services and systems to ultimately improve the customer perception of a client’s brand.  However, one of the most important things we need to be mindful of when designing for behaviour change is that we must also focus on the ‘future’ view of how we want people to behave with what we create.  We need to consider the end-state behaviour ideals that we are aiming for when we are designing.

As Henry Ford says, “if I had have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”: people can’t project beyond their current experience to meet a future need.  That’s the designer’s job.  The following models of behaviour change are useful to consider when working on projects.

The A B C of behaviour

The most basic tenet of behavioural analysis is to view behaviours as a function of a person and their environment.  That is, something happens to precede behaviour (the antecedent) which in effect causes or influences the behaviour, resulting in a consequence.  We can’t change a person, but we can influence the way they behave by shaping the environment they function within.

What this model shows us is we can shape behaviour, and generally the easiest way to do this is through some form of positive reinforcement or removal of a negative.

As designers, the important part of this basic model when applied to behavioural observations is that your design is the positive reinforcer, or the negative affect; meaning the behaviour you are observing is quite often a direct result of your design.

This shows us through good design we have the ability to shape and influence someone’s behaviour. (Unfortunately this is true for bad design too!)

We can’t change a person, but we can influence the way they behave by shaping the environment they function within … through good design we have the ability to shape and influence someone’s behaviour.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour

The Theory of Planned Behaviour, proposed by Icek Ajzen, (and a modification of Ajzen & Fishbern’s earlier model called the Theory of Reasoned Action) explains the link between attitudes and behaviours; it essentially proposes a model for how human action is guided.  Today, it is thought to be one of the most predictive persuasion theories.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour by Icek Ajzen

The model highlights what influences a persons decisions, and attempts to reveal why we might make certain choices. The model suggests that in order to predict whether a person intends to do something, we need to know:

• Whether the person is in favour of doing it (attitude);
• How much the person feels social pressure to do it (subjective norm);
• Whether the person feels in control of the action in question (perceived behavioural control).

Without going too deeply into the cognitive side of things, it’s important to keep in mind that behaviour is often not intentional or controlled at all.   With conscious thought believed to play a small role in the decision making process.

Nevertheless, we need to keep this model in mind, because if we can understand the attitudes of customers and what influences the choices they make, we are better able to use this information to design solutions that will resonate with their belief system, and ultimately, have a greater chance of influencing them to change their behaviours.

The Stages of Change Model

Another useful model is the Stages of Change Model proposed by Prochaska & DiClemente, which is arguably one of the most dominant models of health behaviour change.  This model outlines several steps in the behavioural change process, and assists to gauge an individual’s readiness to act on a new healthier behavior, and provides strategies or processes of change to assist someone move through the stages of change toward action and long-term maintenance (i.e., sustained change).

The model broadly suggests that people can cycle in and out, and around several times before sustained change is realised, then maintained for the long term.

Stages of Change Model by Prochaska & DiClemente

The stages in the change cycle are broadly noted to be:

• Pre-contemplation
• Contemplation
• Preparation or determination
• Action
• Maintenance
• Termination (100% self efficacy)
• Relapse (cycle back to an earlier stage).

Taken together, the models can help us as designers understand how people might make certain choices (Theory of Planned Behaviour), and consider ‘where’ in the cycle of change an individual may be (Stages of Change Model), in order to assist them move through these stages toward a new behaviour.

The Models in Real Life

The Models can be tied back to my egg timer experience. An environmental trigger (the water crisis) was accompanied by social norms of the time around saving water in Melbourne, so my senses were highly attuned to this and my motivation to comply was high.  I thought I was incredibly conscious of the amount of water I was using, however, the real game changer was the arrival of the egg timer in the post; this tool forced me to see how long I actually took when I was in the shower.

Applying the models to my situation of behaviour change

Once this tool was placed in the correct context I observed a dramatic change in my water conserving habits, so clearly I was ready for ‘action’, according to the Stages of Change model.  What is more, internalisation of this behaviour has resulted, and behaviour change has been maintained across a substantial period of time.

So looking at basic behavioural analysis – or the ABC of my behaviour – the tool was the Antecedent, and the Consequence was that I felt better about having a shorter shower and saving water…less guilt if you like.  So the result was that I adjusted my behaviour to shower in less time, and quite rapidly too.

What else can influence behaviour change?

Don’t Forget Rules …

Melbourne Bike Service

Rules undoubtedly affect mass behaviour change.  However, the change they make may not always be what is expected.

One example comes from Melbourne’s new bike share service – and the problems caused by the government’s laws requiring users to have and wear a helmet while using it. From a behavioural perspective, how about considering the behaviour the government were hoping to change with the introduction of helmet laws in the 1990’s, and how it’s fared?

Helmets laws were first introduced as a way to assist lower the level of head injuries sustained by cyclists.  And as with many behaviour change initiatives, we are now – some time down the track – in a position to assess if the laws assisted, by comparing injury rates before and after the laws were introduced.

Graphs of cyclist hospital injuries in Victoria with and without head injuries (1995) show that while head injuries were reduced, so were non-head injuries – so perhaps all they did is reduce the number of cyclists?  If anything, the peaks and troughs show that seasonal variation (i.e., winter), appears to have had the greatest impact of all, and that helmet laws have done little, if anything, to improve safety.

Cyclists hospital admissions in Victoria with and without head injuries

Today we want to design services and provide infrastructure that encourages use of bikes, and unfortunately, when we reflect on it from a behaviour change perspective, having to wear helmets appears to have caused a decline in the number of cyclists.

The assumption that all cyclists would adopt helmets because it was the law appears to have caused behaviours within the wider population that were very different from those initially expected.

… Or Fun!

Fun – children understand it!

But what if there are no rules (the world most of us work within)?

It is possible to change someone’s behaviour, particularly through fun.

Ralph Koster’s book A Theory of Fun for Game Design (2004) looks into the meaning and significance of fun. He suggests that fun is the element of life that is enjoyable and frees us from the normal stresses of the everyday – and also the means by which we retrain our brain to learn new patterns of behaviour.

Fun is the means by which we retrain our brain to learn new patterns of behaviour.

The explosion of games and apps on mobile phones show that games present a real opportunity to change people’s behaviours and habits. Examples include Frog’s Tempt’d (resisting the temptation of unhealthy eating through leaning on your social network as DesignMind explains), and Runkeeper (a way to track, measure and improve your workouts).  I’ve also heard of great ideas for encouraging people to save money, water and energy  through a game-like applications.  Watch this space! The game explosion and their application for driving positive behaviour change is going to intensify.

Design for Behaviour Change? Yes We Can.

So, we can change behaviour through design of products, services and systems, and the best way to do this is to first consider the customers culture and context, before we even start on ideas.

However, if we hope to design behavioural change, we’ll need to focus beyond what is happening right now.  One way to ensure we are looking ahead is to be mindful of the behaviour we want to observe in the future. Set behavioural goals, just as you would set design goals, and let this guide your strategy and design process.

Here are a few takeaways to consider when you are designing solutions that need to drive behaviour change.

1. Define the desired behaviour change you want to observe;
2. Feed this into the business strategy and design process, let it guide these processes;
3. Define your target audience, then go a bit outside the norm.  You often learn more from those who don’t meet your assumed or expected specifications;
4. Conduct research and understand the behavioural predictors of the population (attitudes, norms, control, stages of change).  Qualitative and quantitative data is needed here;
5. Monitor, measure and modify.  Remember, changing a behaviour can take time, so let’s be patient!

References

• Stages of Change Model, Prochaska & Diclemente (1982).
• The Theory of Planned Behavior, Icek Ajzen (1985). [PDF]
  
• The Theory of Reasoned Action, Fishbein & Ajzen (1975).
• Evaluation of the bicycle helmet wearing law in Victoria during its first four years; D. Carr, M. Skalova & M.H. Cameron (1995).
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Ralph Koster (2004).
• Tempt’d (site, soon to be app). More information on the initiative on DesignMind.
  
• Runkeeper (app/site)

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Image Credits:

• Egg timer in shower –  Source: Jannygirl on Flickr.
• ABC blocks, Change Model and Theory of Planned Behaviour Model courtesy of Symplicit.
• Melbourne Bike Share System – Source: Mikael Colville-Andersen on Flickr.
• Head injuries [graph] – Source: D. Carr, M. Skalova & M.H. Cameron (1995).
• Girl – Source: Crackpotstudio on Flickr. © Royalty-Free/Corbis.

Nathan Shedroff is a leading author in experience design and the increasing value of design. His book subjects have included experience design (the 2001 experience-in-itself-book Experience Design 1), design thinking  (Making Meaning, 2006) and sustainable design (Design is the Problem, 2009). He is currently the head of the Design MBA Strategy at the California Institute of Arts (CCA).

Shedroff spoke to me about the difference between businesspeople and designers, his upcoming foray into sci-fi, and what designers wanting to get involved in sustainability can do.

VT:You’ve had an interesting history, starting in automotive design. How did you get interested in user experience?

Nathan Shedroff

I think that user experience was always an interest of mine but back in the 80s it wasn’t framed as a common or even legitimate part of the design discussion. I remember proposing a project in my Ergonomics course at ArtCenter to evaluate the organisation and functionality of car engine compartments and my instructor couldn’t see how it related to ergonomics. I certainly didn’t know enough to frame the investigation as “user experience” and that my users were mechanics back then, but the driving and owning experience was a large part of what interested me about cars.

From there, I moved into information design in a publishing context [TheUnderstandingBusiness and the award winning Vivid Studios]. That was clearly all about user understanding and experience, even if the medium was more narrow – in some ways -than what ultimately is available today in electronic media.

Your first book ‘Experience Design’ was published in 2001. What’s changed in the field since then?

Experience Design (2001)

Mostly, what’s changed is that “user experience” and “customer experience” is now, nearly universally, considered an important, legitimate part of an organisation’s offering – even by those that only pay this lip-service. This doesn’t mean that they practice it or do so well, but it’s recognised by nearly every consumer organization and many B2B companies as well. Similarly, even many of those vocal pundits back in 2001 who complained about the term “experience design” and how vague it was are full-fledged proponents of it, using that very term to differentiate their consulting.

What hasn’t changed is what experience design has always been about and its dimensions and elements. While I’ve added text to the updated book, Experience Design 1.1, the same topics are just as relevant today and will be just as relevant in 100 years as these are universals about human experience. For sure, many of the online or digital examples are gone so I’ve kept some and replaced others, but the teachings about why these elements are important, and what designers need to think about when building experiences will probably never change.

Excerpt from Experience Design 1.0 - IDEO Kiss Communicator

Making Meaning took a far more business-minded (or ‘design thinking’) approach. What was different talking to business rather than design?

Making Meaning

Business people have their own language and focus more on certain management issues. In addition, the vast majority of those who go into “business” are more comfortable with certain processes and modes of thinking. Many rely on consistency and structure to manage processes in predictable ways. They want regularity and to eliminate deviations. Many designers specifically go into the design field because they don’t like these conditions. They like serendipity, challenge, and novelty. They hate it when everything is the same, day in and day out.

Both are required processes, of course. Roger Martin speaks eloquently about the need for both in his books. However, practitioners of both approaches believe, in their own little worlds, that theirs is not only the superior way to build and manage businesses but often the only valid way. This is a fallacy and often the seed of eventual destruction – of offering, of market share, and of culture.

Making Meaning was, by all means, a business book. It began as a business case for experience design. Steve Diller and I had outlined the dimensions and elements of experiences and we kept banging into “meaning.” We knew it was important but we didn’t know how to model or describe it. After some investigation, it was Steve who proposed a model for how meaning worked in experience and it was at that point that we realized that this was not only the most important and strategic aspect of experience, but that it had incredible potential for businesses. So, we turned the book inside out, around meaning, and rewrote the book around meaningful experiences and the processes and steps organizations could use to make them.

we realized that [the concept of meaning] was not only the most important and strategic aspect of experience, but that it had incredible potential for businesses.

The language of the book is more geared to businesspeople and managers but the meaning and experience models are just as appropriate for designers and the language shouldn’t preclude anyone from understanding it. Unfortunately, none of the diagrams for this made it into the book so I’ve made them available on my site in my various slide presentations on the subject. I think these are much easier for designers, and some businesspeople, to understand.

Diagrams from 'Creating Meaningful Experiences'

Your most recent book ‘Design is the Problem’ is a guidebook for designers to use their skills in the field of sustainability. How did you get involved in sustainable design?

Design is the Problem

I earned my MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in 2006 and Design is the Problem is essentially what I learned about sustainability through that journey from a design perspective. It was clear to me in 2004 that not only was “business” the future of “design” (in the sense that designers needed to understand business issues, processes, and language if they were to have the influence they thought they should), but that “sustainable business” was the future of “business.” So, when a friend suggested that I join her at Presidio, I decided to drink my own Kool-Aid(™) and explore this double-jump into the future.

I very much value my degree but I don’t think it’s realistic to think that every designer is going to take two years to learn about sustainability and business. Yet, it’s critical information that every designer needs to understand. My book is an attempt to get designers up-to-speed quickly, in one book, without sacrificing the principles behind a real understanding of sustainability. The resource list, in the back of the book, helps them move further in whatever direction that is interesting to them, after having gotten a good foundation in the intersection of design and sustainability.

One of your main points in Design is the Problem is the importance of a systems approach to design – something that many designers don’t find particularly interesting. How have designers responded to the book and frameworks?

Very positively. In fact, the only negatives I’ve heard are reactions to the title by designers who haven’t yet read the book. Mostly, I’ve heard a lot of relief and gratitude for laying-out an approach for understanding the principles, frameworks, tools, and design strategies for sustainability. I’ve since started calling this set of concepts, the “sustainable innovation model” and I think it can help anyone quickly come up-to-speed on the domain. It’s probably not complete but I think that all of the basics are there, especially in terms of systems thinking, and there’s a lot in the strategies that designers, engineers, and managers can put into practice immediately. It’s not meant to be the only book you’ll ever have to read on the subject but, instead, the first book that can orient you to the complexities without overwhelming you.

[Design is the Problem is] not meant to be the only book you’ll ever have to read on the subject but, instead, the first book that can orient you to the complexities without overwhelming you.

Sustainability Helix from Design is the Problem

Your books have ranged from storytelling to life cycle analysis. Is there an overall theme to the areas you write about, or do you see it as how design is developing?

I think it’s more about how my interests intersect where design is going. I’ve been lucky to have hit on subjects that were important to me that also became important to design. I doubt that this will always be the case. However, it’s clear to me that business, design, and sustainability can no longer be approached or practiced separately and that one of the most powerful points at this intersection is meaning. My last four books have been right at that intersection.

My next book, Make It So, co-written with Chris Noessel, is about a completely different topic: what interaction designers can learn from science fiction interfaces. It’s a book I’ve wanted to write since 1989 and it’s so much fun to work on. I doubt it will be where “design is developing” in the same way that the last four have been but it will probably be more successful because, really, what designers don’t like science fiction (and even a little sex thrown in!)?

business, design, and sustainability can no longer be approached or practiced separately and that one of the most powerful points at this intersection is meaning.

What other projects are you working on now?

Along with books and speaking, my main focus for now is on CCA’s MBA in Design Strategy and Leading by Design Fellows programs – I’m still building an alumni network and career function to have ready by the time our first graduates finish in May of next year. I always have a few projects on the back burners that will get pulled to the front after that.

Having worked across so many fields, what would a dream project for you be?

I’d like to redesign the experience of television news – and television itself. I’d like to work on rethinking publishing as a model and industry. I’d also like to rethink how the government provides services to citizens. I think smartphones need a more useful front-end for communication (and if the iPhone’s APIs were more open, we could build it).
I also like big questions: What does a post-consumer world look like? We don’t yet know. We need to rethink consumerism, meaning and growth. These don’t have the same contexts anymore and they aren’t serving us in the ways they have in the past.

Can you tell us about what you’ll be talking about at Interaction 10?

I’ll focus more on what interaction designers can do with the principles of sustainability. Often, interaction designers look at the design strategies and think “this is all about physical products and material impact and my work doesn’t deal with these.” This is somewhat true but there are several ways that interaction designers can make a positive impact in their work with regards to greater sustainability, whether that’s ecological impacts, social and cultural impacts, or financial impacts. At the very least, I want people to leave my talk with a foundation that gives them some confidence – if not courage – to start exploring more and being able to start a conversation within their organisations and with their clients about these issues.

Finally, if our readers wanted to start incorporating sustainability into their own design companies and client work, what’s something they can do right away?

Design things that are truly useful, usable, and desirable.
Design things that are meaningful
Look at the systems involved before designing anything and think about providing value through services instead of only through objects.
Dematerialise products, services, packaging, transportation–everything that you can.
Learn and have fun doing this.

Interaction 10

If you want to meet Nathan Shedroff in real life: he is one of the keynote speakers at Interaction 10. It is the third annual conference hosted by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). Each year, IxDA aims to gather the interaction design community to connect, educate, and inspire each other. This year it is held in Savannah, Georgia (USA).

Image Credits
Kiss Communicator picture taken from Experience Design Books
Making Meaning diagrams from ‘Creating Meaningful Experiences’ PDF // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Sustainability Helix from Rosenfeld Media Flickr set // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I read Marshall McLuhan years ago when I was knee deep in media theory and cognitive psychology, but it took a trip to the IA Summit in Memphis last week to bring that back – and I immediately began thinking about the materials, medium and methods we choose to use in our ideation and exploration phases and how it impacts our designs and solutions.

Here’s Jesse James Garrett at the recent IA Summit 2009 in Memphis quoting Michael Wesch quoting Marshall McLuhan:

We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.
~ Marshall McLuhan

I think that design materials, methods and problems are all tied together in a mutual dependency. Consider the example of an online training for an interactive system. The material is set to be HTML,  and perhaps Adobe Flex. This controls what the designers can do and how they perceive the problem. There are some things the designers cannot even imagine to do. I would not, for instance, consider interactive 3D-visualization of a database. To give another example, if it is decided that we build a computer game in 3D, I have already reckoned what some of the problems are: for example, modellers and animators are needed rather than a HTML-coder. But why not architects? Why not model train builders? I got this inspiration while visiting the National Building Museum, where the local Washington DC Lego Train Club was showing off their extraordinary creations. I realized that when we are framing a design problem, we shouldn’t choose the material, medium or method first – this might limit our possible solutions.

When designers decide which method to use (i.e. how to approach the design work), they also perceive the design problem in a certain way. The method (whether Agile or User Centered Design or Activity Based Design) blinds the designer to some aspects and it highlights others. Methods are nevertheless necessary, but in order to get the whole picture I must recognize these blind spots from the outset, and perhaps explore the problem space using multiple methods. Otherwise the method is pressed upon the material and the problem,  and they get locked into being certain things.

when we are framing a design problem, we shouldn’t choose the material, medium or method first – this will limit our possible solutions

This has been a problem with the design of many applications and websites. The management decides on a method and it is imposed on the problem and onto the material. It doesn’t matter what the problem is, and it doesn’t matter what material the project is working with, they still use the same method ( probably one that is also trendy). However, it´s irrational to try to use the same development method in web store projects as in space shuttle projects. We should not think that there is one material and one method that works for all problem spaces, and this is especially important in the early ideation phase when we should be engaged in divergent thinking – how much divergence can their really be when the medium, material and method are already set?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the web. I hope to be working with the web in 10 years, in 20 years. But the web is just a canvas. Or perhaps a better metaphor is clay — raw material that we shape into experiences for people. But there are lots of materials — media — we can use to shape experiences. Saying user experience design is about digital media is rather like saying that sculpture is about the properties of clay. That’s not to say that an individual sculptor can’t dedicate themselves to really mastering clay. They can, and they do — just like many of you will always be really great at creating user experiences for the web.
~ Jesse James Garrett, IA Summit 2009 The Memphis Plenary

What is our clay? How do we explore and create great user experiences when we always go back to the same well, use the same materials and the same design method – how can we not always arrive at the same solutions?

When you have a hammer goes the old cliché. But what if you used clay? Legos?

In my view, a design method consists of a complex set of techniques tied together by a common, underlying philosophy. Every designer has a repertoire of methods and examples that make up his or her experience. The experience is of course tied to what sorts of projects the designer has been working on. The examples that a designer has seen influences how design problems are framed; they also embody the designer’s knowledge of the design materials. Someone who has worked only with web projects has a repertoire of examples from the web, but also has  knowledge in design materials like paper, Omnigraffle, XHTML, Photoshop, JavaScript, et cetera. As user experience professionals charged with designing information,  spaces,  and interactions between people, people and spaces;  people and objects;  and people and systems,  I think we need to step back and try other media, materials, and methods in the problem space exploration phase of our engagement. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to doing what we´ve always done, with the materials we´ve always used, according to a methodology handed down by management because it is the latest three-letter acronym.

“We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.” McLuhan´s simple maxim is more relevant to today’s user experience designers than ever before. We need to explore new ways, new materials, and new methods if we really want to innovate and create fantastic, crafted, playful experiences that engage our audience.

Top image by batega