Some apps or websites are beautiful, stylish, and well thought out in terms of UX, but have one problem: they are boring. These products can trigger both desire and resistance in the user at the same time. Here are a few tricks that will help solve this problem not from a rational, but from an emotional side.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as smart watches, smart energy meters, and telematics devices have great potential for changing risky behaviors. These devices collect data about behaviors and replay it to consumers to inspire action. But there are considerations for behavioral scientists if this technology is going to be successful as a behavior change tool. This article discusses three considerations and how behavioral scientists can help to unlock the behavior change potential of IoT.
Many behavioral interventions offer win-wins to firms, governments, and other stakeholders. However, research has shown that experts do a poor job predicting the effectiveness of behavioral interventions. This article aims to help calibrate forecasts of an intervention's effectiveness. I outline six steps to help assess whether a published effect is likely to be useful in practice.
Effective digital health interventions may need to address a broad set of barriers in order to help a diverse population change behaviors. Layering the Double Diamond model of design with a behavioral design process ensures the inclusion of a comprehensive set of behavior change techniques in an intervention. Coupled with personalization technology, this approach can make digital health more equitable.
Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about data privacy in their interactions with tools that support financial decision-making. The authors of this TFI research project investigate the impact of privacy concerns on consumers’ use of financial support tools by conducting four experiments using a savings calculator tool, a mortgage calculator tool and an investment advice tool.
Insights into the innovative behavioural design that underpins McDonald’s reinvention.
By Nathan Maddix Can Nudging Overcome Physics Envy? As is now well-known, tremendous results have been found for nudges – behavioral interventions designed to facilitate choice for welfare-promoting outcomes. In my work over the last 5 years, I have sought not only to design and administer nudges, but also to understand how economists and [...]
Like many of you, I work in problem domains that are bedeviled by complexities, often in dispersed teams of people with different skills. New technologies are thrown into this problem solving mix with an accompaniment of overwhelming hyperbole on a daily basis. It soon becomes a case of struggling to see the forest for the trees. How exactly do we marry behavioral science, app design and engineering in an organized, coherent and repeatable manner in such a workplace?
Nudges are great, but they aren’t enough. While they are elegant, nudges are (often) just tweaks augmenting a pre-existing service or policy regardless of its quality, appropriateness or fitness. It is time to go from nudging to behavioral design.
On the train from London to Brussels, the passenger sitting next to me suddenly gets agitated. I look at him puzzled, as this is a wagon entirely populated by people traveling for business and sudden noises or exuberant behaviour are noticeable like being dressed in a pink suit. My travel companion apologises and adds:"Damn, I [...]
