VP Behavior Change Design, Mad*Pow

🕒  DURATION: 15 MIN

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INTERACTIVE CASE STUDY #5

Part 1

Welcome to this Habit Weekly Pro case study! 🚀

We're honored to having Amy Bucher sharing her wonderful insights, especially since Engaged is the book of the month for November 2020! 📚

Here is what you can expect from exploring this case study

All Levels

Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change

This case study is suitable for both beginner & expert level behavioral designers. Perfect for anyone who wants to explore designing for digital behavior change.

Book Deep-DIve

Learners can expect to learn the key tools and insights from the book. The aim is to help you understand how to apply the main concepts using real-world examples. 

Cheet Sheet + More

• Downloadable cheat sheet
• Additional readings

Hello! I’m Amy Bucher, author of Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change, and Vice President of Behavior Change Design at Mad*Pow. I have a PhD in psychology and have spent the last 15 years applying that training to designing engaging and effective behavior change interventions.

“An incredibly comprehensive and intelligent guidebook for designing products and services that change people’s lives.”

— Nir Eyal,
Bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable

People ask me a lot about having a PhD, and whether it’s something you need to have to do the type of work I do. Want to know the truth?

You don’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to do behavior change design! Good to hear, right?

Still, you do need a good grounding in the science of psychology. I wrote Engaged in part to bring that science to design professionals who may not have a deep social science background.

Basically, if you have a job title like product manager, UX researcher, experience strategist, product designer, or visual designer, I was thinking about you while I wrote Engaged.

In this interactive presentation, I'll do my best to share some of the key insights from the book. Hopefully, this should provide you with the fundamentals of behavior change design!

The one motivational theory to rule them all

5.

4.

1.

2.

3.

The behavior-change design process

Creating an outcomes map

Designing for competence using the COM-B model

Effective strategies for boosting a sense of autonomy

Presentation Overview

So, what is behavior change design and why should you want to bring it into your practice?

If you’re working on a product or service that aims to change people’s behavior in a lasting way, then behavior change design is a useful approach to explore.

No matter how good your product is, most of the time people won’t be using it. That means it needs to deliver behavior change in a way that persists into the users’ everyday lives.

Social science offers lots of frameworks and theories that help designers create products that stick with people – even when they’re not using them.

First things first – I’ll hit you with a little vocabulary lesson just so we can speak the same language.

Generally, jargon is bad. It makes using your product harder for users, and can be frustrating. But sometimes, it’s really important to use the proper terminology. So bear with me!

Here are two bits of jargon I use over and over when I talk about behavior change design. I feel like it’s important to be precise about these because they’re so core to the process.

In sum, we can say that behavior change designers build interventions to change target behaviors.

Now that we know the basic vocabulary, let’s talk about the underlying forces that to makes behavior change happen. Enter motivation 🔥

I focus a lot on motivation in my approach. If we want people to start a behavior and then keep it up, it’s going to have to align with something they want and care about. 

The theory I draw on most often is called self-determination theory. A big takeaway is that all people have three basic psychological needs.

Self-Determination Theory

BEHAVIORAL FRAMEWORK

If we can design experiences that support them, people will be more interested in taking action.

So, ready to learn more about the three needs?

The Self-Determination Theory

The first basic psychological need from SDT is autonomy. People want to make meaningful choices for themselves.

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

This is a really scary need for designers to support. What if your users don’t want to take the actions that are critical for your product to be successful?

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

Secondly, people need to feel like their actions have an effect. We’re wired to look for evidence that we are growing, changing, and succeeding as a result of the things we do.

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

As designers, we can create experiences that help people take positive actions and see the results of their efforts. This idea is behind the need of competence.

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

Relatedness is people’s need to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. The good news is, designers have lots of ways to connect users to each other and to experts to get real, live human support.

"I am part of something bigger than myself. I belong."

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

It has to be done thoughtfully, but it can be really effective. 

"I am part of something bigger than myself. I belong."

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

Also, because the human brain is so hardwired for connection, designers can also create technology-only solutions that help people feel the warm-and-fuzzy sense of relatedness.

"I am part of something bigger than myself. I belong."

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

So these are the three psychological needs. Research on self-determination theory consistently shows that people do things that support these needs.

"I am part of something bigger than myself. I belong."

The Self-Determination Theory

"I can make my own meaningful choices"

"I am learning, growing, and succeeding."

So, as a general rule when I’m working on a project this is what I continuously ask myself.

“Can I use this feature to somehow support one or more of these needs?

If so, how?”

Another big idea from self-determination theory that is at the heart of designing effective behavior change is that the source of motivation matters a lot.

People who have “controlled” forms of motivation are doing things for externally provided reasons like rewards, punishments, or to make someone else happy.

These types of motivation are hard to sustain when the going gets tough. On the other hand, “autonomous” forms of motivation come from within and are long-lasting.

As a behavior change designer, I want to understand what really matters to people so I can create products that help them live into their values, goals, and self-conceptions.

When we aim to put this understanding to practice, we can follow the process I put into Engaged. It's the same one we use at Mad*Pow.

Shout out to Dustin DiTommaso!

We call our four phases Diagnosis, Prescription, Execution, and Evaluation, and they roughly correspond to any good scientific process.

The Behavioral-Change Design Process

BEHAVIORAL FRAMEWORK

In short, we (1) investigate the problem space to come up with a hypothesis; (2) explore different solution possibilities; (3) build out the best one; and (4) test whether it worked.

Most people who do any kind of behavior change design have a process like this, although I’ve seen different numbers of steps and different names for the activities.

Very early in the design process,  you should plan your outcomes strategy.

Your outcomes strategy has four main parts.

1.

Identify what users are doing now. This is your baseline.

Determine what the long-term, big success metrics for your intervention are. What will make your client / boss / investors feel like you succeeded?

2.

E.g. How Lemonade makes it feel ridiculously easy to onboard

3.

How much people have to use your intervention to benefit from its magic. These will likely be some kind of engagement metrics.

4.

What target behaviors users must  do in order to make the outcomes reality. These may happen entirely outside of your intervention, so don’t limit yourself to your product.

Outcomes Strategy

Once you figure out what your metrics might be, you’re going to create an outcomes logic map.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE TOOLS

Outcomes Logic Map

Just like any other map, this will help you figure out where you are and where you are going when it comes to designing a successful behavior change intervention.

The rest of the behavior change design process focuses on those target behaviors that you put on your outcomes logic map.

Let’s start with Competence and explore ways you can support people in feeling like they’re learning and growing.

Scaffolds are a great metaphor for supporting competence through behavior change design. We’re building interventions that help people accomplish big goals through small steps, just like a scaffold lets construction workers build a skyscraper.

When I’m working on supporting people’s competence through design, I ask myself two overarching questions.

1. How can I make this easier for people to do?

2. How can I help people feel like they’re making progress?

Answering those questions takes some detective work. First, designers need to identify and solve what I call “ability blockers.” Then, designers must structure the change process to make it achievable.

Finally, keeping people on course means great feedback every step of the way.

First, let’s talk ability. One way to help people feel competent is to understand what makes behavior change hard, and then remove those barriers.

A tool I like to use to do this is the COM-B model and the Behaviour Change Wheel.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE TOOLS

The Behaviour Change Wheel

This approach and associated tools provide practical, actionable ways to understand what makes a behavior hard for users and how a designer can help make it easier.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE TOOLS

The Behaviour Change Wheel

Check out the complete Behaviour Change Wheel toolkit: http://www.behaviourchangewheel.com/

The COM-B model is a useful and practical way to identify what might make a target behavior harder (or easier!) for someone to perform.

I often structure my research questions to explore capability, opportunity, and motivation as they relate to the behaviors we hope to change.

Capability blockers can be either physical or psychological. They might include not having the physical skills or ability to perform a behavior.

Someone new to running will probably lack the stamina to go very far (physical capability) and may not know how to structure a training plan (psychological capability).

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

Or, it might mean not having the knowledge and training to do something.

Someone new to running will probably lack the stamina to go very far (physical capability) and may not know how to structure a training plan (psychological capability).

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

Opportunity can be thought of as both the physical and the social environment.

Quitting smoking can be challenging for people.

Not only is smoking physiologically addictive, there are often opportunity barriers to quitting.

Smoking can be a social activity, and for people who live in places where smoking is permitted in bars and restaurants, hard to avoid.

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

What is possible in the built environment where the behavior takes place? How do the other people involved make the behavior harder or easier?

Quitting smoking can be challenging for people.

Not only is smoking physiologically addictive, there are often opportunity barriers to quitting.

Smoking can be a social activity, and for people who live in places where smoking is permitted in bars and restaurants, hard to avoid.

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

Motivation includes both reflective motivation and automatic motivation. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the variation in mask wearing can be chalked up to motivational barriers.

Some people prioritize personal comfort over the public health benefits. Others don’t believe that mask wearing is effective.

Any intervention to increase mask wearing should consider addressing motivational barriers.

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

Reflective motivation refers to people’s goals and goal priorities. If something isn’t important to them (or if other things are more important), it’s not likely to get done.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the variation in mask wearing can be chalked up to motivational barriers.

Some people prioritize personal comfort over the public health benefits. Others don’t believe that mask wearing is effective.

Any intervention to increase mask wearing should consider addressing motivational barriers.

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

Automatic motivation refers to the mental models people have about how the world works. If they don’t believe a behavior is valuable or will bring about a desired outcome, they’re not likely to give it a try.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the variation in mask wearing can be chalked up to motivational barriers.

Some people prioritize personal comfort over the public health benefits. Others don’t believe that mask wearing is effective.

Any intervention to increase mask wearing should consider addressing motivational barriers.

Diagnosing Ability Blockers

A fun part of the behavior change design job is puzzling through the right set of questions and approaches to understand what’s  standing between a user and behavior.

• Tell me about what it’s like for you to do [behavior]?
• What, if anything, makes it hard for you to do [behavior]?
• What, if anything, makes it easier for you to do [behavior]?

Identify a target behavior 🎯(one at a time please).

Then, build versions of these questions into your research approach:

These variations can look something like these ones.

Capability Probes

• What makes it physically  challenging for you to do [behavior]?
• What information do you need to do [behavior]?
• What training wouldhelp you do [behavior]?

Opportunity Probes

• What do other people do related to the behavior?
• What is the physical environment in which you do the behavior?
• How does it make it easier or harder

Motivation Probes

• What, if anything, interests you in doing the behavior?
• What do you believe the consequences of doing the behavior will be?
• How does doing this behavior related to other goals you have?

As you transition from the Diagnosis to the Prescribe phase of your project, you’ll want to identify the types of solution features most likely to overcome your users’ barriers to target behaviors. The Behaviour Change Wheel can help.

One reason I love using COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel? The research includes a decision tree linking the barriers uncovered in research to the types of interventions that are likely to be effective to solve them. I think of this tool as an evidence-based shortcut to finding the right design.

Solving Ability Blockers

One key step is prioritizing which blockers to solve for. Your research probably uncovered lots.

Systematically evaluate them to figure out which ones are having the biggest effect, are easiest for you to address, or will make the biggest experience difference for your users.

I’m not kidding about systematic. Rating the blockers you’ve identified with a numerical score will help you prioritize them so you can create a really focused design.

Solving Ability Blockers

I think of the Behaviour Change Wheel like a decision tree that can help narrow down the universe of possible solutions to your design problem.

Every type of barrier to a behavior has a certain set of solutions that have tended to be successful in overcoming it based on prior research.

By using these categories of solutions, known as intervention functions, as a starting point for design, you increase the odds that your product will produce the outcomes you want.

Solving Ability Blockers

Sometimes you may have trouble deciding where a barrier fits. Is it social opportunity, or automatic motivation?

I find that if you have this sort of issue, it’s better not to worry about which category and instead see which intervention function corresponds to both options. Enablements, environmental restructuring, and modeling all work for both social opportunity and automatic motivation.

Part of the COM-B model includes how capability, opportunity, and motivation influence each other. They don’t exist in a vacuum. It makes sense that some barriers might cross categories. What’s important is finding the right solution set.

Solving Ability Blockers

A lot of the goals we have for our users are difficult to attain and will take a long time. Designers should think about breaking big goals into smaller milestones that are easier for users to achieve.

This will make taking the first steps less intimidating. It also gives people a roadmap to follow, and lets you provide lots of reinforcing feedback as they make progress.

Finally, feedback can be used to boost competence.

One of my favorite examples of great feedback is the video game Rock Band. Players see feedback on their most recent action, but also their long-term performance.

This feedback helps players improve during the game and builds a sense of accomplishment. Designers in other fields can learn a lot from video game designers about feedback structures.

BEHAVIOR CHANGE STRATEGIES

Strategies for Boosting Autonomy

When the going gets tough, the tough reflect on personally meaningful reasons to keep going.

1. Making Meaningful Choices

Remember from self-determination theory that autonomous forms of motivation are more powerful and long-lasting?

1. Making Meaningful Choices

That’s why an early step in behavior change design is often helping users reflect on what really matters to them.

1. Making Meaningful Choices

It helps them connect with that strong motivation and it sets them up to make meaningful choices that support a sense of autonomy.

1. Making Meaningful Choices

Are there places in your design to ask users questions like these ones?

• What are your life goals?
• Who are the people and what are things you love?
• What type of person do you want to be?
• Does this behavior I’m trying to do support me in being the best version of myself?
• How can I bring my actions and what matters to me together?

Questions to ask users think about values

1. Making Meaningful Choices

Noom is one program that does a nice job getting people to think about what matters to them during onboarding. Here’s what it looks like.

1. Making Meaningful Choices

Now it’s your turn. Here are three design features to try.

• Follow the Noom example and ask users during onboarding to drill down on their real reasons for participating in your product.
• Try rhetorical questions. Something like “How does quitting smoking help you be more like the person you want to be?” will help plant seeds of change.
• Let people share their choices in a way that makes them look good. Did they complete their first workout? Facilitate a social media brag. They recycled 1000 cans last year? Stick a recycling superhero badge on their profile.

Try Theses Three Design Features

1. Making Meaningful Choices

Peloton lets users pick hashtags that accompany their names on the leaderboard during workout sessions. These hashtags let people share something meaningful about themselves and their fitness goals using easily understood shorthand.

1. Making Meaningful Choices

If you’re into behavioral economics and “nudges,” this section is for you. Understanding cognitive biases is a major part of designing good choice architectures.

2. Making User Choices Easier

There’s a middle ground in giving users meaningful choices to make. People can be overwhelmed by too much choice. Have you heard of “analysis paralysis” or “the paradox of choice”? Behavior change design has some tools to avoid putting users in this situation.

2. Making User Choices Easier

It’s easy to think of examples of products that don’t offer a strong enough choice architecture. Ever feel anxious or overwhelmed using any of these?

2. Making User Choices Easier

One thing you can do in your design is offer fewer choices. Designers can be curators, who choose a small number of good options from the overall set.

2. Making User Choices Easier

Designers can also collect user data to help curate options. In this case, the choice architecture includes a decision tree or simple algorithm to select the right options based on user data.

Shared decision-making tools in medicine, like this one from Emmi Solutions, let health care professionals winnow down treatment options with input from patients.

2. Making User Choices Easier

Exposing your rationale can also give users an opportunity to correct any mistakes you’ve made in recommendations. This is a free opportunity to make your algorithms smarter--don’t waste it!

Explaining why an option is suggested for users can help them feel more confident that it’s right for them, and that designers aren’t just hiding the best options.

2. Making User Choices Easier

Here’s an example that combines several of the good choice architecture practices we just looked at.

Roobrik helps caregivers narrow down their options based on specifics of their situation.

By being transparent about why these recommendations are being made, Roobrik helps users feel more confident about their choices.

And by offering a more limited (but curated) selection, Roobrik helps choosing be less overwhelming.

2. Making User Choices Easier

CASE STUDY COMPLETED

Part 1

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