How to Design for How Humans Actually Make Decisions.
Combining service design and behavioural science.
Preface by Marzia Aricò
I met Angela a few months ago while setting up as a solopreneur. She was at a similar stage in her career, and we immediately bonded over our similar past experiences and aligned visions for our individual futures. Angela is a behavioural scientist who has long worked with design and designers to define better services. I have asked her to write an accessible piece for design practitioners who want to start thinking about how to use principles of behavioural science in their practice.
Enjoy it. Before we start, please take a moment to subscribe to the blog if you haven't done so already. Much appreciated.
Ever designed a service experience that users interacted with in unexpected ways, even after extensive qualitative and quantitative research? Increasingly, service designers are turning to behavioural science for help. While service design aims to understand people’s needs, goals, and motivations, it often lacks a precise toolkit for unravelling why customers behave the way they do. This is where behavioural science steps in, providing a valuable lens through which to explain, predict, and influence customer behaviours.
Grounded in Evidence: The Power of Behavioural Science.
Behavioural science draws from evidence-based frameworks, empowering service designers to understand why individuals sometimes act in seemingly “predictably irrational” ways. Renowned behavioural economist Dan Ariely popularised the idea that people, rather than consistently making rational choices, are significantly influenced by biases and mental shortcuts (heuristics). These automatic decisions occur in our subconscious minds—what psychologists refer to as System 1 thinking. Instead of meticulously weighing options (System 2 thinking), we rely on instinct and past experiences to make swift judgments.
The Unseen Forces at Play.
These mental shortcuts, often unnoticed, allow us to decode our environment and make quick decisions without conscious effort. However, because approximately 95% of decisions stem from System 1 thinking, we are unreliable witnesses to our own decision-making processes. For the most part, we can’t articulate why we act in the way we do because we’re unaware of our subconscious behavioural drivers. Instead, when asked to explain our actions and preferences we make up stories that align with how we’d like to see ourselves to post-rationalise choices. This raises the question, just how useful is the qualitative and quantitative research service designers rely on to guide design decisions? To further illustrate this problem, let’s look at how a pandemic impacted beer sales.
A Pandemic and Beer Sales.
When coronavirus became a deadly worldwide pandemic, researchers and the media were interested in how sales of the popular beer Corona might be affected. In a survey, Americans were asked whether they intended to buy Corona beer, 38% declaring they would never buy the brand “under any circumstances”. So sales went down? Quite the opposite. For each new Covid case, there was a $5.30 increase in weekly Corona beer sales compared to other big beer brands, likely due to the strong name association between Coronavirus and Corona beer. As Jennifer Clinehens points out, this is a perfect example of system 1 thinking and subconscious decision making: people often say they will behave in a certain way but act very differently. Coronavirus was on everyone’s lips in 2020, and so was the beer that sounded like it!
If service designers and marketers had relied on reported behaviours (survey results) rather than observed behaviours (actual sales) to guide their ‘data-driven’ decisions, the outcomes would have been way off. Instead of relying on qualitative and quantitative research only, we need a much bigger toolkit for understanding and influencing system 1 and 2 thinking. This is where behavioural science comes in.
Enter Behavioural Science.
Behavioural science offers several models that can help designers to better the behavioural context of a customer journey. These frameworks can be applied to uncover the unconscious and conscious drivers that influence decision-making and identify behavioural barriers to desired outcomes. Here are a few of the most popular models to investigate:
COM-B model and the Behavioural Wheel: One of the most comprehensive models. Modify at least one of three components - Capability (C), Opportunity (O) and Motivation (M) to change behaviour (B).
B-MAP model: In BJ Fogg’s model, Motivation, Action and a Prompt must all be in place at the same moment for a behaviour to change.
Trans-theoretical Model of Behaviour Change (Stages of Change): This model demonstrates how humans move through six stages when changing behaviours. Understanding which stage a person is in can inform more effective designs.
Theory of Planned Behaviour: This theory suggests that behaviour is influenced by intentions, which are in turn influenced by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived control over the behaviour.
But what could go wrong?
Before rushing out to apply these frameworks, it’s important to consider the risks and ethics. Firstly, use behavioural science for good. Ensure you’re helping people to align their actions with their goals and improve their overall well-being. Respect your audience and avoid deception and manipulation.
Secondly, always consider unintended consequences. For example, while an intervention to encourage recycling might sound like a great idea it can give people moral license to increase their carbon footprint in other areas. Map unintended consequences and devise strategies to address and monitor outcomes throughout a project, both good and bad.
Lastly, avoid the trap of over-simplifying human behaviour through the use of frameworks or lists of biases. Remember that general observations about behaviour may not apply to an individual or to different cultures. Test interventions in a controlled environment to truly understand their effects on behaviour.
A Deeper Understanding of Human Behaviour Leads to Better Services.
The more we know about how humans make decisions, the more we need to supplement traditional design and research methodologies with new tools. Behavioural science can fill this gap by providing models and frameworks that allow service designers to explore both system 1 and 2 thinking and better predict the behavioural outcomes of their designs. Surveys, interviews and user testing, while still helpful, need to be deployed alongside experiments that test how customers will actually behave in a service interaction. Next time you’re creating a journey map or planning research, how could you apply behavioural science research and frameworks to more deeply understand your customers?
References
Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. HarperCollins Publishers
Clinehens, J. (2020). Choice Hacking: How to use psychology and behavioral science to create an experience that sings, Published Independently
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/30/how-did-the-pandemic-affect-the-corona-beer-brand/
https://hbr.org/2001/06/want-to-perfect-your-companys-service-use-behavioral-science
https://liveworkstudio.com/insight/behavioural-interventions-in-service-design/
https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/1297/1/Lockton Designing Motivation or Motivating Design 2010.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/upshot/the-power-of-nudges-for-good-and-bad.html