Why Behavioural Science Belongs in UX Design

Why Behavioural Science Belongs in UX Design

Behavioural science principles have long been gaining momentum and acknowledgement in UX teams, but this has been especially driven over the last 18 months by a variety of factors, including COVID19. Up until now, behavioural science as a UX skill has just been seen as a bonus, but I expect that over the next 5 – 10 years it will become a more concrete fixture in UX teams.

A conversation with UX Leaders in my recent roundtable brought these topics to the forefront, asking “why is behavioural science so valuable to UX?” Based on that conversation, and further research, I take a look at why behavioural science in UX is on the rise and how it is beneficial.

What is Behavioural Science?

I’m sure qualified behavioural scientists could provide a much more in-depth explanation, but for the sake of this article, very simply put, Behavioural Science, also known as Behavioural Economics, looks at the subject of human actions, specifically how humans make decisions in the real-world. It’s clear to see how a UX researcher and designer would value data and information around how a user interacts, understands, and engages with their product in the wider environment. If the UX team more fully understands a user’s behaviour, reasoning, and motivations, they are more informed to make better decisions when designing a product or service with the user at the forefront.

Why is ‘Behavioural Science’ in UX Growing?

There are a number of reasons behind the growth of Behavioural Science ‘UXers’. Of course, the most obvious factor is COVID-19. COVID-19 saw a very sudden change in human behaviour which changed the way we communicated, shopped, and worked, and which also introduced new socio-political, financial, and health concerns which may have changed attitudes to risk, spending, and more. This put UX and Product teams under immense pressure to adapt to these new buyer and user behaviours. Behavioural Science suddenly became a key part of the UX research and testing phase.

But it wasn’t only COVID-19 that has accelerated this trend.

Formal education for Applied Behaviour Scientists now exists and other behavioural science training courses are easier to access. Not only this, but the first generation of Behavioural Scientists are now ‘coming of age’, which means that there is a bigger talent pool of UX professionals with training or experience in behavioural science.

Additionally, as technology advances, there is also more of an explicit demand for behavioural scientists. Personalisation, as well as newer technologies such as AI and machine learning, are all rooted in behavioural science, for example. With an increasing number of businesses leveraging these tools and technologies, they will need to hire people who have experience with behavioural science if they are to use these effectively. Behavioural Scientists can evaluate the quality and meaning of data that is used to determine how people experience a product or service, and also understand motivation and cognition, which helps them to determine how an experience should be delivered by an algorithm to produce the best results.

Benefits of Behavioural Science in UX

Cliff Kuang explains that “a lot of designers will tell you that 90 percent of design is just finding the right problem. The solution is actually not necessarily the hardest part.” Behavioural Science can analyse user behaviour to help identify those problems amongst many other things.

Behavioural Science can support any UX team in delivering a user-centric and inclusive product. This is mainly thanks to the ability to completely map out a target network’s interconnected behaviours, understand their motivations to engage in different actions, view all the barriers that prevent them from completing other actions, and understand the mental processes behind all user actions. This valuable insight into the very mind of a user can help inform future decisions and pinpoint any issues that need amending to suit today’s user needs. A great Behavioural Scientist can help optimise your design process.

Additionally, having someone familiar with behavioural science on your team can give your design process much more depth and save you huge amounts of money. Sometimes the most subtle change in user journey or layout can solve a problem that’s been delaying a project for months, and if these issues are caught early on, they can really smoothen out the design process and prevent expensive changes or re-releases further down the line.

Essentially, behavioural science can bring UX teams even closer to the users that they are designing for, by giving them insights into their thoughts, needs, motivations, and blockers. This data is invaluable to UX teams, who can then action this information by making changes, additions, or amendments to existing products or platforms to ensure the final product is perfect for its users. It helps to answer the question of ‘why’ users need your product, or ‘why’ they are using your product in the way they are, or even ‘why’ they don’t want to use your product.

These deep personal insights can really help design a product that is 100% user-centric and that outshines the competition.

Scaling and Maturing your UX Team

With increasing focus on user design and as Product functions shift to a more user-centric approach, UX professionals are in higher demand than ever before.

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