An interactive tool to help you take a behaviourally informed approach when designing your communications

Digital media are omnipresent in modern life, but the science on the impact of digital media on behavior is still in its infancy. There is an emerging evidence base of how to use digital media for behavior change. Strategies to change behavior implemented using digital technology have included a variety of platforms and program strategies, all of which are potentially more effective with increased frequency, intensity, interactivity, and feedback. It is critical to accelerate the pace of research on digital platforms, including social media, to understand and address its effects on human behavior. The purpose of the current paper is to provide an overview and describe methods in this emerging field, present use cases, describe a future agenda, and raise central questions to be addressed in future digital health research for behavior change. Digital media for behavior change employs three main methods: (1) digital media interventions, (2) formative research using digital media, and (3) digital media used to conduct evaluations. We examine use cases across several content areas including healthy weight management, tobacco control, and vaccination uptake, to describe and illustrate the methods and potential impact of this emerging field of study. In the discussion, we note that digital media interventions need to explore the full range of functionality of digital devices and their near-constant role in personal self-management and day-to-day living to maximize opportunities for behavior change. Future experimental research should rigorously examine the effects of variable levels of engagement with, and frequency and intensity of exposure to, multiple forms of digital media for behavior change.

The best way for increasing the usage and value of the product is crafting the product from a behavioral perspective instead of feature perspective. The best way for changing this mindset is asking simple questions about your users and what behaviors you want to create for bringing them value. Sankey Diagrams are awesome tools for measuring these behaviorals funnels. Once we have detected and optimized the different behaviors, the impact of adding new features will be much higher than before.

Designing Health & Fitness Apps with the Mind in Mind - Massimo Ingegno (and other speakers)

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI)–driven apps for health education and promotion can help in the accomplishment of several United Nations sustainable development goals. SnehAI, developed by the Population Foundation of India, is the first Hinglish (Hindi + English) AI chatbot, deliberately designed for social and behavioral changes in India. It provides a private, nonjudgmental, and safe space to spur conversations about taboo topics (such as safe sex and family planning) and offers accurate, relatable, and trustworthy information and resources.

Emotions and worries can reduce individuals’ available attention and affect economic decisions. In a four-week experiment with 2,384 US adults, offering free access to a popular mindfulness meditation app (Headspace) that costs $13 per month improves mental health, productivity and decisionmaking. First, it causes a 0.44 standard deviation reduction in symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression, comparable to the impacts of expensive in-person therapy, with improvements even among participants with minimal or mild symptoms at baseline. Second, it increases earnings on a proofreading task by 1.9 percent. Third, it makes decision-making more stable across emotional states, reducing the interference of personal worries with risk choices. Overall, our results demonstrate the potential of affordable mindfulness meditation apps to improve mental health, productivity, and the impact of emotions on economic decisions.

For starters, every interaction a person has with a digital product follows the same pattern: Information — User filters the information Significance — User looks for its meaning Time — User takes an action within a time frame Memory — User stores fragments of the interaction in their memory For each of these stages of interaction, I’ve compiled a list of the most relevant design principles and cognitive biases that will help you to build habit-forming products.

You may be wondering: If users want personalization, then what’s the problem? The problem is that personalization is a bit like walking a tightrope. A very thin line separates the “good” kind of personalization from the creepy kind. “I like it because it’s so similar to me” can easily become “I don’t like it because it’s eerily similar to me.” “This is relevant to me and saves me time and effort” can easily become “The algorithm is stereotyping me and that’s not cool.” This switch from good to bad is where user psychology comes in. Understanding the real reason why personalization works can help us understand why it does not work sometimes.

It’s not just about really liking a product (although you definitely want users to really like your product). With the right design elements, your users might embark on a meaningful bond with your technology, where they feel engaged in an ongoing, two-way relationship with an entity that understands something important about them, yet is recognizably non–human. This is a true emotional attachment that supplies at least some of the benefits of a human-to-human relationship. This type of connection can help your users engage more deeply and for a longer period of time with your product. And that should ultimately help them get closer to their behavior change goals.

Augmented and virtual reality can be an incredible tool when it comes to practicing certain skills that may not be safe or realistic in real life. AR and VR technologies are radically changing L&D as an industry. This research report, Augmented and Virtual Reality for Behavior Change, by Julie Dirksen, Dustin DiTommaso, and Cindy Plunkett explores how AR and VR can be a great resource for behavior change. The report examines key research on this, centered on the following themes: Enabling the Behavior Empathy Building Experiencing Consequences Future Projection Feedback Emotional Self-Regulation Download this report to discover how AR and VR solutions are a useful investment for behavior change.

A review of recent research provides clear evidence that many organizations are currently undervaluing the power of digital design and should invest more in behaviorally informed designs to help people make better choices. In many cases, even minor fixes can have a major impact, offering a return on investment that’s several times larger than the conventional use of financial incentives or marketing and education campaigns.

When the growth team took a step back, they realized it wasn’t enough to trigger just any notification. They needed to “show the right things to users at the right time — creating ‘aha moments’” where the user experienced the product’s core value. Rather than indiscriminately bombard the user with notifications, they concluded that they needed to be “really thoughtful about which messages to send which users” and focus “more of [their] resources on engaging users that were likely to churn.” Taking a page from Facebook, here are 5 kinds of engagement messages that work to activate, retain, and grow customers. Highly personal and targeted, these emails show off your product’s core value, ferry your users to their “aha moments”, and get people engaging with your product and brand again and again.

Luckily, behavioral science can help close the intention-action gap, offering a toolkit to help change behavior for the better. Here are three ways we can apply lessons from behavioral science to drive sustainable engagement:

“Tracking your daily activity with a pedometer, wearable, or smartphone is an important part of any physical activity program,” Patel said by email. “However, it should be combined with other behavior change strategies such as goal-setting, coaching, or social interventions to increase sustainability.”

Contrary to popular opinion, feelings aren’t the opposite of rationality; they are evolutionary rationality made flesh.