Designing motivation or motivating design? Exploring Service Design, motivation and behavioural change

Motivation researcher Edward Deci has suggested that if we want behavioural change to be sustainable, we have to move past thinking of motivation as something that we ‘do’ to other people and see it rather as something that we as Service Designers can enable service users to ‘do’ by themselves. In this article, Fergus Bisset explores the ways in which Service Designers can create more motivating services. Dan Lockton then looks at where motivating behaviour via Service Design often starts, with the basic ‘pinball’ and ‘shortcut’ approaches. We conclude by proposing that if services are to be sustainable in the long term, we as Service Designers need to strive to accommodate humans' differing levels of motivation and encourage and support service users' sense of autonomy within the services we design

Research in practice: Bringing behavioural change from lab to studio

Design influences behaviour, whether it's planned or not. Service Design has a great opportunity to lead the emerging field of design for behavioural change, helping guide and shape experiences to benefit users, service providers and wider society. In this article, presented as an evolving conversation between research and practice, Nick Marsh (EMC Consulting) and Dan Lockton (Brunel University) discuss and explore design patterns for influencing behaviour through Service Design, and how Service Designers and academics can work together for social benefit

Exploring Cognitive Playfulness Through Zero Interactions

Many emerging technologies, products and services today try to use diverse methods of interaction to provide playful experiences. Increasingly more interactive features and techniques are being introduced to afford users new experiences and enrich our living environment. While many of these playful experiences can be achieved through various types of physical, sensory and social interactions, this paper attempts to focus on how 'no-interaction' can achieve playfulness in relation to our cognitive experience. If there is a way to give someone a playful experience without any physical, sensory and social interactions, where and how can we apply this approach or phenomenon? Here we share a provocation that tries to demonstrate a tangible means whereby such an idea could be used to explore potential user experiences within HCI

Making the user more efficient: Design for sustainable behaviour

User behaviour is a significant determinant of a product’s environmental impact; while engineering advances permit increased efficiency of product operation, the user’s decisions and habits ultimately have a major effect on the energy or other resources used by the product. There is thus a need to change users’ behaviour. A range of design techniques developed in diverse contexts suggest opportunities for engineers, designers and other stakeholders working in the field of sustainable innovation to affect users’ behaviour at the point of interaction with the product or system, in effect ‘making the user more efficient’. Approaches to changing users’ behaviour from a number of fields are reviewed and discussed, including: strategic design of affordances and behaviour-shaping constraints to control or affect energyor other resource-using interactions; the use of different kinds of feedback and persuasive technology techniques to encourage or guide users to reduce their environmental impact; and context-based systems which use feedback to adjust their behaviour to run at optimum efficiency and reduce the opportunity for user-affected inefficiency. Example implementations in the sustainable engineering and ecodesign field are suggested and discussed

Making Instructions for Others: Exploring Mental Models Through a Simple Exercise

Investigating how people understand the systems around them—from technology to democracy to our own bodies—is a common research goal across many disciplines. One of the practical aims is uncovering differences between how people think systems work and how they actually work (particularly where differences can cause problems) and then addressing them, either by trying to change people’s understanding or by changing the way people inter- act with systems so that this better matches people’s understanding [1]. Being able to say that you under- stand a system is essentially saying that you have a model of the system [2]. In HCI and other people-centered design fields, attempting to characterize people’s mental models of technology in which their behavior plays a role can be a significant part of user research. Users’ mental models will perhaps only rarely accord exactly with designers’ conceptual models of a system [3], but this is not necessarily a problem in itself: “[A]ll models are wrong, but some are useful” [4]. Mental models should not be assumed to be static constructs covering the whole of a system; multiple models working at different levels of abstraction can be relevant in different circumstances, from complex work domains to simple everyday interactions [5]

POSIWID and determinism in design for behaviour change

Copyright @ 2012 Social Services Research GroupWhen designing to influence behaviour for social or environmental benefit, does designers' intent matter? Or are the effects on behaviour more important, regardless of the intent involved? This brief paper explores -- in the context of design for behaviour change -- some treatments of design, intentionality, purpose and responsibility from a variety of fields, including Stafford Beer's "The purpose of a system is what it does" and Maurice Broady's perspective on determinism. The paper attempts to extract useful implications for designers working on behaviour-related problems, in terms of analytical or reflective questions to ask during the design process

The design with intent method: A design tool for influencing user behaviour

The official published version can be found at the link below.Using product and system design to influence user behaviour offers potential for improving performance and reducing user error, yet little guidance is available at the concept generation stage for design teams briefed with influencing user behaviour. This article presents the Design with Intent Method, an innovation tool for designers working in this area, illustrated via application to an everyday human–technology interaction problem: reducing the likelihood of a customer leaving his or her card in an automatic teller machine. The example application results in a range of feasible design concepts which are comparable to existing developments in ATM design, demonstrating that the method has potential for development and application as part of a user-centred design process

A Vocabulary for Visions in Designing for Transitions

Las “visiones de futuros sostenibles” se han propuesto como un componente clave del diseño para la transición, “un medio a través del cual los estilos de vida contemporáneos y las intervenciones de diseño pueden evaluarse y criticarse contra la visualización de un futuro deseado” (Irwin et al, 2015a, p. 8). Tales ambiciones son necesariamente de amplio alcance, y requieren unir líneas sobre el diseño y la especulación de diversas fuentes. Aquí buscamos aumentar el impulso explorando un conjunto de conceptos que se relacionan particularmente con este papel de visión en el diseño de transiciones. Sobre la base de perspectivas y proyectos de otros campos, presentamos elementos de un vocabulario visionario, que abarca diferentes escalas y grados de eliminación del presente, y la ubicación de estos términos en relación con los desafíos específicos y las oportunidades para el pensamiento y la práctica de la transición.“Visions of sustainable futures” have been proposed as a key component of Transition Design, “a means through which contemporary lifestyles and design interventions can be assessed and critiqued against a desired future state” (Irwin et al, 2015a, p. 8). Such ambitions are necessarily wide-ranging, and call for drawing together strands on design and speculation from diverse sources. Here we seek to add to the momentum by exploring a set of concepts relating particularly to this role of vision in designing for transitions. Building on perspectives and projects from other fields, we present elements of a visionary vocabulary, covering different scales and degrees of remove from the present, and situating these terms in relation to specific challenges and opportunities for transition thinking and practice.as visões de futuros sustentáveis se propuseram como componente chave do design para a transição, um meio através do qual os estilos de vida contemporâneos e as intervenções do design podem ser avaliadas e criticadas contra a visualização de um futuro desejado (Irwin et al, 2015a). Essas ambições são necessariamente de amplo alcance, e requerem unir linhas sobre o design e a especulação de diversas fontes. Aqui procuramos aumentar o impulso explorando um conjunto de conceitos que se relacionam particularmente com o papel de visão no design de transições. A partir de perspectivas e projetos de outros campos, apresentamos elementos de um vocabulário visionário, que abarca diferentes escalas e graus de eliminação do presente, e a localização destes términos em relação com os desafios específicos e as oportunidades para o pensamento e a prática da transição.&nbsp

Design with Intent: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design

Design with Intent is a multidisciplinary interaction design toolkit comprising patterns for influencing people’s behaviour. The format is a pack of illustrated cards, with accompanying website; other variants, including an iPad app, have been created by users. The academic background is introduced in Lockton’s Output 2, but the toolkit itself is intended for practitioners’ use, and so was developed through an iterative action research process of workshops with designers and students in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. It brings together a range of psychological and technical disciplines, enabling designers to explore relevant patterns, phrased as provocations enabling use as both a brainstorming tool and a reference. Making the toolkit available online, with publicity from bloggers including Cory Doctorow, Seth Godin, Maria Popova and Tim Harford, led to large numbers of downloads (150,000 by September 2011). Comparing it to IDEO’s Method Cards, Rhode Island School of Design’s John Maeda tweeted (2011) that Design with Intent was ‘More useful than the IDEO deck and free to boot’. Organisations buying the printed version for their own use include BBC, Philips Research, Ubisoft, EDF, CBS Interactive, Fox, Sony, Bayer Healthcare, European Bioinformatics Institute and JustGiving. It has been used by educational institutions worldwide, including Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design, NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, London College of Communication, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Art & Design and Cambridge’s Judge Business School, set as reference material in RSA and Core77 design competitions, and recommended as a resource by the Central Office of Information. Lockton has run workshops and given guest lectures using the toolkit for organisations including Dyson, Ubisoft and Philips, and at both industry and academic conferences; in 2012, Autodesk ran a series of workshops using the toolkit as part of its sustainability programme