Free Behavior Design, Innovation and Change Tools These frameworks started out as internal tools we would use on client projects at Aim For Behavior, that would help us save time and create better outcomes for the customers and the companies we were working with. We are always adding more frameworks or iterating the current ones based on the feedback.

Personas are a widely used tool to keep real users in mind, while avoiding stereotypical thinking in the design process. Yet, creating personas can be challenging. Starting from Cooper's approach for constructing personas, this paper details how behavioral theory can contribute substantially to the development of personas. We describe a case study in which Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is used to develop five distinctive personas for the design of a digital coach for sustainable weight loss. We show how behavioral theories such as SDT can help to understand what genuinely drives and motivates users to sustainably change their behavior. In our study, we used SDT to prepare and analyze interviews with envisioned users of the coach and to create complex, yet engaging and highly realistic personas that make users' basic psychological needs explicit. The paper ends with a critical reflection on the use of behavioral theories to create personas, discussing both challenges and strengths.

In this short follow up post we explain how and why we combine systems thinking and behavioural approaches. We start by introducing the concepts of ‘systems’ and ‘systems thinking’ before explaining why Systems thinking is useful to combine with a behavioural approach.

The Wheel of Progress® is a framework created by Eckhart Boehme and Peter Rochel leveraging jobs-to-be-done principles and methods to evaluate why customers “hire“ a given product or service to accomplish a Customer Job. It provides a canvas to be used when conducting consumer research to evaluate the journey a customer takes from first thought to use of the solution (consumption/job satisfaction). In addition, it enables one to evaluate the four forces of progress at play (push, pull, habits, anxieties) in regards to 'switching behavior'. Finally, one is able to evaluate constraints (internal, external, time-based) that impact the customer journey.

Long-term behaviour change is essential to many societal and personal challenges, ranging from maintaining sustainable lifestyles to adherence to medical treatment. However, prior research has generally focused on interventions dealing with bounded, present-tense, and discretely measurable behaviour change problems, evaluated via relatively short-term trials. This has led to a skewed prioritisation of behaviour change techniques and left a critical gap in design guidance. Hence, there is an urgent need to (i) examine how behaviour change techniques can be abstractly prioritised and (ii) related to contextual, embodied interventions during long-term behavioural design. We address this need using a Delphi survey method with 12 international experts on behavioural intervention complemented by a reanalysis of over 100 real-world cases. This provides the basis for examining how experts prioritise the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy (BCTT) for the long-term, as well as how this corresponds to real-world long-term interventions. Based on this we provide essential, and as a first, guidance for long-term behavioural design as well as contributing to wider research on how to deal with the demands of long-term behaviour change.

BEHAVIOURAL DESIGN TOOLS. Need a sidekick in your Behaviour Thinking journey? We’ve got you covered with tools and theories. Let’s go.

Info, research, questionnaires/scales, info on application to specific topics

Chapter 1|7 pages Introduction Abstract Size: 0.09 MB Chapter 2|38 pages Sequential Techniques Of Social Influence Abstract Size: 0.20 MB Chapter 3|19 pages Techniques Involving Egotistic and Self-Presentation Mechanisms Abstract Size: 0.13 MB Chapter 4|34 pages The Role of Wording the Request Abstract Size: 0.19 MB Chapter 5|34 pages Interaction Dynamics and the Surprise Factor Abstract Size: 0.36 MB Chapter 6|26 pages Techniques of Social Influence Using Mood and Emotion Abstract Size: 0.17 MB Chapter 7|10 pages A Few More Issues and Final Remarks Abstract

BC patterns are a collection of reoccurring solutions used in Behavioural Design to change people’s behaviour. They are patterns that designers, change makers and problem solvers can consider when solving people problems and designing behaviour change.

Bonus talks Why You Forget Everything And What to Do About It w/ Bec Weeks – https://youtu.be/VoDlOmHbaWE The Sneaky Things That Keep Good Habits From Sticking w/ Jessica Malone – https://youtu.be/oCwMXY7u73A Nicolas Fieulaine from NFÉtudes – https://youtu.be/E-XNZUGvVT0 ––– Timestamps 0:00 Event Intro 6:53 The Science of Habit Change with David Neal 38:10 The Science of Mindfulness with Dr. Clare Purvis 53:03 Creatures of Context with David Perrott 1:21:05 Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life with Ashley Whillans 2:05:36 The Invisibility of Habit with Wendy Wood 2:34:19 Digital Behavior Change in Health with Jennifer La Guardia & Aline Holzwarth 2:59:11 Better Decision Making at Work: 5 Core Heuristics (& How to Manage Them) with Scott Young, BVA Nudge Unit 3:22:32 All the small things - How behavioral science can help you unlock success in love and at work with Logan Ury & Liz Fosslien 4:09:53 How to apply behavioral insights to cyber security training with Harriet Rowthron from BestAtDigital 4:22:44 Making Meaning When Life Stinks with Yael Schonbrun 4:54:47 The Power of Identity with Dominic Packer 5:30:40 The Untapped Science of Less with Leidy Klotz 5:55:10 Day Wrap-Up with Samuel Salzer & Peter Judodihardjo

The presentarticle reviews the debate and research on nudges byfocusing on three main dimensions: (1) the exact defi-nition of nudges; (2) the justification of nudge policies,with a focus on “libertarian paternalism”; and (3) theeffectiveness of nudges, both over time and in compari-son with standard policies.

We present a theoretical model to clarify the underlying mechanisms that drive individual decision making and responses to behavioral interventions, such as nudges. The model provides a theoretical framework that comprehensively structures the individual decision-making process applicable to a wide range of choice situations. We also identify the mechanisms behind the effectiveness of behavioral interventions—in particular, nudges—based on this structured decision-making process. Hence, the model can be used to predict under which circumstances, and in which choice situations, a nudge is likely to be effective.

To do so, we drew on a theoretical framework which highlights that defaults operate through three channels: first, defaults work because they reflect an implicit endorsement from the choice architect—your company’s HR department, your city’s policy office, your credit card company, your child’s school. Second, defaults work because staying with the defaulted choice is easier than switching away from it. Third, defaults work because they endow decision makers with an option, meaning they’re less likely to want to give it up, now that it’s theirs. As a result, we hypothesized that default designs that trigger more of these channels (also called the three Es: endorsement, ease, and endowment) would be more effective. In our analysis, we find partial support for this idea. That is, we find that studies that were designed to trigger endorsement (defaults that are seen as conveying what the choice architect thinks the decision maker should do) or endowment (defaults that are seen as reflecting the status quo) were more likely to be effective. In addition, we find that defaults in consumer domains tend to be more effective, and that defaults in pro-environmental domains (such as green energy defaults) tend to be less effective.

In a meta-analysis of real-life experiments drawn from food science, nutrition, health economics, marketing and psychology, the authors find that behavioural nudges - facilitating action rather than providing knowledge or inducing feelings - can reduce daily energy intake by up to 209 kcal, the same number of calories as in 21 cubes of sugar.

I started with the raw list of the 175 biases and added them all to a spreadsheet, then took another pass removing duplicates, and grouping similar biases (like bizarreness effect and humor effect) or complementary biases (like optimism bias and pessimism bias). The list came down to about 20 unique biased mental strategies that we use for very specific reasons. I made several different attempts to try to group these 20 or so at a higher level, and eventually landed on grouping them by the general mental problem that they were attempting to address. Every cognitive bias is there for a reason — primarily to save our brains time or energy. If you look at them by the problem they’re trying to solve, it becomes a lot easier to understand why they exist, how they’re useful, and the trade-offs (and resulting mental errors) that they introduce.

Like the physical properties of the universe, human behavior is complicated. And just as Newton’s Laws describe the motion of physical objects, these Laws of Human Behavior aim to provide a general model for how humans behave. People tend to stick to the status quo unless the forces of friction or fuel push us off of our path; behavior is a function of the person and their environment; every decision includes tradeoffs and the potential for unintended consequences.

Government policies and services can be hard to navigate for people who are already under pressure. By understanding the effects of scarcity, we can make these easier to access for the people who need them. https://bi.dpc.nsw.gov.au/blog/2018/12/13/a-guide-to-reducing-the-effects-of-scarcity/

The table below provides guidance for thinking through when specific policy tools are useful and when choice architecture or nudging can be used to complement or enhance a particular strategy.

Diagram of cognitive biases clustered by meaning and application

Rather than pulling behavioural insights together into a tasty, cohesive recipe, behavioural economics has offered myriad tasty morsels and left it up to the audience to reconcile them. People want choice. People get overwhelmed by choice. People follow what others do. People don’t like to be seen to follow others. People act impulsively. People stick with the status quo. People are lazy. People like challenge. Agghhhh! To be useful behavioural economics needs to evolve from a series of interesting anecdotes to a framework that can help analyse and resolve behavioural challenges. The Williams Behaviour Change Model So that’s what I’ve cooked up. I’ve created your very own behavioural framework that is as tasty as a non-deconstructed sticky date pudding. This model gets beyond behavioural economics for its own sake and provides a structured way for you to interrogate your behavioural challenge and design how to get people to take the action you want.

Though nudge-economics remains seductive, what once seemed like a panacea has come to look a bit more like a series of sticking plasters. Earlier this year the nudge unit was removed from direct government control, partly sold to the Nesta innovation charity run by New Labour guru Geoff Mulgan, a move which seemed to suggest the prime minister no longer viewed it as quite so central to his philosophy. That move has coincided with a backlash, or at least a critical analysis, of some of the tenets on which its brand of behavioural economics is based.

(Part 2)

If you want to encourage a behaviour, make it Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST). These four simple principles, based on the Behavioural Insights Team’s own work and the wider academic literature, form the heart of the team’s new framework for applying behavioural insights.