Behavioral Design: Understanding its Impact on Decision Making



The Behavioral Design Team

The Behavioral Design team works at the intersection of three disciplines: behavioral science, psychology, and design thinking. These three disciplines converge around one thing: people. What we really care about is understanding and influencing human behavior in ways that are beneficial, predictable, and intentional. In our team, we spend a lot of time thinking, talking, and arguing over the foundations of our craft. From core principle discussions flow the real work of (a) applying our craft to influence beneficial behavior across a variety of domains and (b) honing the powerful techniques and tactics that design professionals and organizations can leverage to create long-lasting impacts in the world.

What is Behavioral Design?

Designing for behavior goes beyond being a mere design philosophy. It’s a design methodology that integrates scientifically grounded insights about human behavior with creative problem-solving methods from design thinking. The intention is to influence both decisions and environments, making them more conducive to the kinds of behaviors we want to encourage—everything from promoting sustainable choices to creating the kinds of customer engagement experiences that distinguish one firm from another.

The Theoretical Foundations of Behavioral Design

The fundamental aspect of behavioral design is that it comes from a variety of academic disciplines that understand the drivers of human behavior. When these fields work together, they provide a really clear picture of the many things that bump and nudge us to do something or not do something. When you take a behavioral design approach to a challenge, you first really understand what people are doing and why, and then you create precision tools to get them to do the thing you want them to do.

Cognitive Psychology and Decision-Making

The principles of cognitive psychology inform the practice of behavioral design. Cognitive psychology studies the processes of thought, memory, and problem-solving in humans. One of its most influential frameworks was created by Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work. Two systems are at play in our thinking. System 1 operates automatically and intuitively. System 2 requires more effortful, conscious, and logical reasoning. When designers align their work with the capabilities and limitations of our two systems, they create better, more usable designs.

Behavioral Economics and Nudging

The notion of human rationality in decision-making is being challenged by behavioral economics. The concept of nudges was introduced by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Nudges are small design changes that can steer people toward desired outcomes and still keep them free to choose. ONE EXAMPLE: Countries around the world have dramatically increased organ donation rates by enrolling citizens by default. Nudges work by taking advantage of cognitive biases and heuristics—mental shortcuts that simplify decision-making under uncertainty.

Habit Formation and Long-Term Change

Designing for habit formation is often necessary when behavior change is desired. A basic framework for this kind of work comes from Charles Duhigg, whose loop of “cue, routine, reward” describes the essential components that need to be present for a new behavior to be adopted and, ideally, to become a habit. Fitness apps, language-learning platforms, and similar products might use reminder (cue), achievement (reward), and near-constant design (to keep the user engaged) to drive user behavior in the desired direction.

Key Principles of Behavioral Design

When designing for change in human behavior, there are specific principles that guide the creation of effective interventions, campaigns, or systems. These principles fall into three main categories: psychological triggers, environmental design, and ethical design.

Triggers, Motivation, and Ability (B=MAT)

The Fogg Behavior Model was created by BJ Fogg. It posits that behavior happens when three elements converge: motivation, ability, and triggers.

• Motivation: Internal desires or external incentives may drive an individual to perform a certain behavior.
• Ease: Whether users complete the task depends on how simple or easy it is to perform.

What is a trigger? A well-timed nudge or prompt reminds users to act at the right moment. This model is a cornerstone for implementing alterations in behavior, ensuring that every necessary component is in place to make a change in behavior smooth and attractive.

The Hook Model for Habit-Forming Products

The Hook Model, created by Nir Eyal, is another influential tool in behavioral design. It specifies a process for creating engaging, habit-forming products. (Eyal doesn’t say so, but it’s clear from his work that most of the models in behavioral design represent the acme, not just of technologies, but of the social sciences, which for centuries have been trying to figure out how to predict and influence human behavior.) The Hook Model has four components: 1. Trigger: an external or internal cue that initiates the desired action, such as notifications or user boredom. 2. Action: a behavior performed in anticipation of a reward (e.g., liking a post). 3. Variable reward: unpredictable incentives that keep users coming back. 4. Investment: actions taken by users that deepen their commitment. This model has been adopted widely by digital platforms like Instagram and Netflix but unfortunately doesn’t stop there.

Simplification and Feedback Loops

At its core, behavioral design is simple. It takes complex decisions and simplifies them to ease the cognitive load of users. It uses nudges to help users make better choices. And it does all this without being obvious or, heaven forbid, patronizing. As a case in point, consider the app Fitbit. It has a very simple interface. (No one wants to interact with a complex app when they are already trying to keep their lives together.) Its main screen shows your daily step count so far, along with a (presumably) tailored nudge that encourages you to get up and move.

Applications of Behavioral Design

Countless industries benefit from the practical applications of behavioral design, ranging from public health to product development. When applied to particular problems, behavioral design becomes a formidable tool for making serious interventions that mean something.

Behavioral Design in Health and Sustainability

The design of behavior has played a crucial role in nurturing beneficial transformations in health and environmental sustainability programs.

• Health: Fitness trackers such as Fitbit or dietary apps that are habit-forming rely on reminders, gamification, and progress tracking to sharpen the wellness of their users.
• Sustainability: Normalizing eco-friendly choices can be done via nudges, such as default green energy plans or reminders to recycle. One iconic example is the playfully ingenious nudge at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The airport installed fly decals in urinals to cut down on the need for cleaning. It’s a nudge that reduced spillage by 80%.

Enhancing User Experience (UX) and Customer Engagement

User Experience (UX) is directly impacted by behavioral design. Behavioral design impacts UX by means of techniques like choice architecture and gamification and personalization.

• Choice Architecture: Designers ease decision-making for users by structuring options well. Take Google Flights, for example. When users set up their searches, they see a number of environmentally friendly flights that are set up as default options for users.
• Gamification: Adding elements that make it seem like a game, such as points and badges, can make users more engaged and satisfied with a website.
• Personalization: Streaming services, such as Netflix, provide suggestions for content that is personalized, which in turn drives a deeper user interaction and also inspires a loyalty factor.

Business, Leadership, and Corporate Culture

Organizations can use behavioral design to make workflows more efficient and to generate better corporate cultures. Programs aimed at developing better leadership within the organization can use the insights from behavioral science to set up better incentives, do better goal-setting, and achieve better outcomes with the collaboration of the team members being led, and of the better productivity of the team as a whole.

Ethical Dimensions of Behavioral Design

Although the potential of behavioral design is huge, it raises fundamental ethical questions about its application. The concerns are not about whether behavioral design should influence decisions but about making its use transparent and ethical.

Ensuring User Autonomy

Transparency and avoiding manipulation must be what interventions are all about. Users must grasp the reason behind their nudging and also have the opportunity to step back if they wish. Designing for behavior should also mean—without any appearance of impropriety—that we’re doing our best to “respect the wish” of nudging users into decisions that are more in keeping with their long-term interests, not our short-term ones.

Avoiding Backfire Effects

Behavioral interventions that are not well implemented may have some unintended consequences. One of the best examples of this is using scare tactics in an anti-smoking campaign. Sometimes, it seems that scare tactics might work the opposite way and reinforce the very behaviors one is trying to get people to stop. This is a zero-sum game. We want to use behavioral science to produce positive effects in the world, and rigorous testing and refinement of interventions help us ensure that happens.

Implementing Behavioral Design: Key Techniques

An array of tools is relied upon by behavioral designers to allow for the effective implementation of their strategies. Among the key techniques are:

Nudging and Defaults

User decisions are guided by nudges to favor preferable outcomes. For example, one of the techniques used is setting defaults. This might mean creating an opt-in organ donation program, or it might mean asking people to choose between a paperless billing option and a billing option that comes in an envelope. In these instances, setting the default may be an effective long-term strategy because it does not require moment-to-moment vigilance from the user—by consistently making the “opt-in” decision, for example.

Scarcity and Urgency

Drawing attention to limited availability or time constraints can spur user action. For instance, Booking.com might tell you, “only 2 rooms left,” or use a countdown timer, to push procrastinators to make a purchase.

Social Proof

Individuals are more inclined to behave in ways that correspond with the actions they observe in their social networks. The use of testimonials, user reviews, and “most popular” labels can boost trust and nudge people toward particular behaviors.

Closing Thoughts on Behavioral Design and WoopSocial

The framework of behavioral design has transformed human interaction with products and systems. It exerts a potent influence on our behavior in various domains, including health, business, sustainability, and technology. WoopSocial is a perfect case study for the transformational power of behavioral design. This tool exemplifies how the principles of behavioral design can be put into action. Indeed, at WoopSocial, we take seriously the directive of making things easy, which is at the core of serving our customers’ needs. We serve up the elixir of automatic social media management. In doing so, we help brands realize the power of consistent and reliable social engagement. And we do all of this with the backdrop of the digital landscape constantly shifting under our feet.