A Behavior Design Newsletter for Digital Innovators
Hi !
If you are seeing this email, we probably know each other :)
I am Ashwin, a Behavior Design educator and practitioner focused on digital innovation.
Behavior design is poised to go mainstream
Behavior design is being rapidly expanded, adapted and applied in a wider variety of contexts and professions as we speak. This is wonderful! It means more ideas, more research and thought, more theory, more examples, and most importantly more acceptance and opportunities for behavior design practitioners.
Here is snapshot of offers for the skill on Upwork, for example. Quite a wide set right there.
We are witnessing the birth of an industry, a profession and a discipline all at once - incredibly cool!
What now? And what next?
A natural consequence of this explosion of ideas is the filtering problem: how is one to sensemake through the volume and variety of information to find the truly relevant signals - for them?
Behavior design is an interventionist discipline. Its paradigms and tools reveal real potential when applied right in a project and user context. And so, in practice, two questions remain critical at all times: what now, and what next?
I’m told that often the reason teams don’t add a behavior design stream to projects is their lack of a shared understanding. Inertia sets in when the team can’t decide where in a project to apply behavior design, how to apply it, and which theories, models or concepts may be the right fit.
For example, a student of mine was recently confused about the ideas in a popular, well-developed Medium article. The framework discussed, with a compelling example case, is shown below.
Graphic 01. Credit: https://medium.com/swlh/a-behavioral-approach-to-product-design-166d22628970
The student wondered: imagine designing a product that drives behavior changes in a busy hospital context. Is it a good idea to ‘grab the attention’ of a busy doctor, potentially distracting them from something critical? Shouldn’t we be trying the opposite: gently, almost invisibly, introduce the behavior change intervention within the doctor’s flow of work? Great question. (Personally, I wouldn’t ever recommend ‘grabbing’ anything in any context related to a user or customer.)
Exploring the article further, the student was also perplexed about the following paragraph.
Graphic 02. Credit: https://medium.com/swlh/a-behavioral-approach-to-product-design-166d22628970
There seemed a paradox here. Was a ‘memorable’ - i.e. pleasant or enjoyable, in other words positive affect - to be created with techniques that evoke negative feelings, such as scarcity and loss aversion? How would a feeling of ‘loss’ leave the user with a ‘memorable experience’? What kind of memories are we talking about exactly? Food for thought indeed.
These questions illustrate that deep and recurring practice problem. It is possible to develop convincing theory and principles around behavioral concepts - such as ‘attention’, ‘memory’ or ‘nudging’. But to navigate those two critical questions - what now? and what next? - understanding how core behavioral concepts are consistently interrelated is essential.
The analytical process of going deep into specific concepts becomes truly powerful when paired with the opposite - synthetic - process of connecting those concepts in consistently meaningful relationships. Think of this as the yin and yang of effective behavior design.
Such a hybrid approach can form the foundation of your behavioral strategy, which in turn defines your course of experimentation.
An ongoing journey
Working as a strategic designer (and backed by degrees in psychology and interaction design) it took me ten years to sensemake my way into the core behavior design domains. It then took another four years to where I began to call myself a behavior design practitioner, and then some to begin to teach it.
I am hoping to help make your journey to such inflection points in your career shorter.
These are the areas where I draw my core behavioral concepts from.
En route, I searched for a design pattern that captured the interrelationships between the concepts. This led me to develop the Behavior Design Canvas. Some of you know it and have used it. It embeds multiple behavioral science theories and more than two dozen concepts into an emergent three part framework. It is being widely accepted and adopted today. I believe it helps behavior design practitioners build their own core understanding by enabling their own learning journey.
Why I am starting this newsletter
This newsletter is the latest chapter in my work as a strategist, thinker and educator. It is also an exciting new way for me to collaborate, share and learn with you. Personally, I understand something best when I write about it. So I can use this newsletter as an excuse to dig into my favourite themes, such as:
The interaction between digital technology and human behavior, and how they change each other.
The behavioral dimension in the design of digital products, services, platforms and experiences.
The intersection of behavioral science, data science and design thinking.
Behavior design methods, tools and practices for digital professionals.
Digital transformation in markets, organisations and society.
Last but not least, the human element and edge in a world of data, algorithms and AI.
My mission as an educator is to develop leading edge behavior design training. You can participate by taking this survey of your learning needs.
Take a survery of your learning needs in behavior design here
Your response will help me develop not just a better newsletter but also better courses and workshop content - which will ultimately empower you to become a better behavior design practitioner and thinker.
Here’s the survey again
I’ll be in touch as I start to figure out online workshops and bootcamps based on the survey.
And meanwhile, I’ll be sending this newsletter your way.
Take care and all the best.
Ashwin