Behaviour by design

Thanks to technology, more people are creating content and collaborating online in ways that were not possible before. But transformation in society doesn’t happen when it adopts new tools, it happens when it adopts new behaviours. Many people have grown up adopting these behaviours to interact with people, solve problems and get things done. That’s why in this programme, there is a strong emphasis on identifying, making sense of and nurturing behaviours in the design of services.

This presentation by @edwardgardiner nails home the importance of behaviour design.

1. Uncover the unusual behaviours people are using in public spaces

Why not call upon the eccentrics or urban safarians amongst your network — be it your colleagues, your neighbours or your friends.

2. Spot which behaviours are spreading throughout a network or a system

Here’s an example of helping people to spot how bullying was spreading through theirs, which you can see below.

3. Make sense of people’s intrinsic motivations as well as their attitudes & behaviours

How can you incentivise and reward those innovative behaviours?

4. Support people to change their behaviour to seed systems change

You could use digital technology to model behaviours people feel confident in displaying. You can work with interaction designers to support social ventures understand how to improve the user experience of their solutions. Interaction design models the behaviours that people use everyday and translating them into the design of services so that there is as little friction as possible in the transition between your offline and online behaviour.

If campaigners on disability rights could develop a social model that’s transformed the way we see the relationship between public services and its users, if fast food chains were able to change the way we consume food, if IKEA were able to change the way people sell products, what behavioural scripts would you create to change the way people see the issue you’re passionate about?