Dan Lockton Behavior Design Amsterdam New Year 2016

Dr Dan Lockton Visiting Research Tutor Royal College of Art, London @danlockton

Design, understanding and agency

“Do you want us to learn what you are telling us? Or is it all a sort of example, an illustration of something else?”

A student’s question to Gregory Bateson

•  Research through design •  Iterative, experimental, exploratory •  Many researchers have backgrounds outside design

Some current research questions from my students…

How can we change behaviour around repair, by making it more emotionally engaging? Nazli Terzioglu

Can metaphors around pregnancy and childcare be applied to change behaviour around packaging?

Yoony Choi

Figure 1) Birth and life cycle comparison of packaging and pregnancy.

Many of different functions of packages reflect the pregnancy experience, and its particular

language too. In figure Table 21, some examples are presented.

Packaging function Pregnancy experience The food is delivered to table The baby has been delivered to table Expire date Due date Faulty in system Miscarriage Disposal inside product before the expire date Abortion Reuse, refill packaging Being pregnant again ‘Handle with care’ label ‘Baby on board’ badge Providing information on the pack Mother knows all about the baby Extra tray/ sleeve/ form cushion for the contents Amniotic fluid Using glue, additive on the packaging Applying chemical on mother’s body Temper proof Cord Non-recyclable packaging Sterility Packaging that self-operate (self- expire) Linea nigra (Dark line) Product position in a package Baby position Recovery Mother recover after giving birth Throw trash anywhere Mom left her child, being orphan Barcode scan Scanning Overdue Expired Produce, reproduce Produce a baby, reproduce a baby Bar code Antenatal record Figure Table 12) Experimenting with language metaphor

!

How can algorithmic IoT systems enable users to construct their own meaning for their behavioural data? How can the ‘observer’ be considered as an active participant? Delfina Fantini van Ditmar

Brunel University, Uxbridge

Many different areas (and traditions) of psychology Sociology, science & technology studies Ethnography, cognitive anthropology Architectural theory Human-computer interaction Ergonomics and human factors Decision science, behavioural economics

cybernetics

designwithintent.co.uk

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‘Design for ‘behaviour change’

‘design for ‘behaviour change’

‘behavioural design’

Growing popularity in government: Behavioural Insights Team (UK), Social & Behavioral Sciences Team (US), World Bank, etc

Every piece of technology “encodes a hypothesis about human behaviour” Adam Greenfield, LSE Against the Smart City, 2013

All design influences our behaviour

…whether intentional or not

“When you decode the world with design intent in

mind, the world becomes kind of magical”

Roman Mars, 99% Invisible

There are lots of examples of things designed to try to influence behaviour deliberately…

…and it’s often quite negative, even though it’s intended to be for ‘social benefit’

[Designed] “objects fundamentally ‘wish us well’”

Clive Dilnot, ‘The Gift’, 1993

[Designed] “objects fundamentally ‘wish us well’”

Clive Dilnot, ‘The Gift’, 1993

Is that always true of behavioural design?

1939

What are the assumptions about people in each of these?

What are the assumptions about people in each of these? (we’ll come back to this)

Determinism

Determinism “implies a one-way process in which the physical environment is the independent, and human behaviour the dependent variable.”

Maurice Broady, 1966, ‘Social Theory in Architectural Design’

People will do that

If our design does this

Treating people as components, with predictable properties so they can be incorporated into your system “WHY CAN’T I HAVE A TABLE WHERE I LOOK UP HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO DO WHAT I WANT THEM TO DO?”

“The inherent variability of the behavioural world gives us more information than we can handle, so we value a stable world-picture, being predictable, and being able to predict. We work at maintaining the constancy of our theories-in-use” Chris Argyris & Donald Schön, Theory in Practice, 1974

Exploring assumptions

power needs

learning

intent

understanding

variety

adaptive- ness

supra- individuality


power •  Does this design approach give one party an advantage

over others? •  How much agency does the ‘user’ have over what he or

she does?




she does?

needs •  Does this design approach help the ‘user’ achieve something he or she needs to do?




she does?


intent •  Does this design approach ‘wish us well’?




she does?



variety •  How nuanced is the ‘model of the user’ employed? •  Will different users experience this in different ways?




she does?



variety •  How nuanced is the ‘model of the user’ employed? •  Will different users experience this in different ways?


•  Does this design approach assume that the user just reacts, thinks, or actually learns?

•  Does it enable the user to construct his or her own meaning or understanding?

learning




learning

understanding

•  Does it ignore, ‘work with’, or try to change the way the user thinks?




learning

understanding


adaptive- ness

•  Does it assume the situation is always the same, or can it adapt based on context?




learning

understanding


adaptive- ness

•  Does it assume the situation is always the same, or can it adapt based on context?

•  What level does it frame the problem at? Does it take account of the wider social and cultural context, or is it about individual people making decisions in isolation?

supra- individuality

Designing with people

rather than for people

And that means understanding people’s lives:

Understanding the contexts and the nuances of everyday experience, and people’s interactions with the world

What happens when people and things are connected?

New types of feedback loop, new forms of adaptation, new models

New stereotypes New superstitions

“For example, while electronic objects are being used, their use is constrained by the simple generalised model of a user these objects are designed around: the more time we spend using them, the more time we spend as a caricature. We unwittingly adopt roles created by the human factors specialists of large corporations.”

Tony Dunne, Hertzian Tales, 1999

“We can see other people’s behaviour, but not their experience.

This has led some people to insist that psychology has nothing to do with the other person’s experience, but only with his behaviour”

RD Laing, The Politics of Experience, 1967

“Your experience of me is invisible to me and my experience of you is invisible to you…

[but] I cannot avoid trying to understand your experience, because although I do not experience your experience… I experience you as experiencing”

RD Laing, The Politics of Experience, 1967

We can’t avoid having models of humans… Hugh Dubberly & Paul Pangaro, ‘Cybernetics and service-craft: Language for behavior-focused design’. Kybernetes, 36(9), 1301-1317, 2007

…but we can challenge and refine them

…and doing research with people in context, as part of the design process, is a way of challenging our assumptions as researchers

Two ways of doing this better:

Two ways of doing this better: 1) Understanding what people are trying to do…

Two ways of doing this better: 1) Understanding what people are trying to do, and helping them do it better

Two ways of doing this better: 2) Understanding how people understand the world…

Two ways of doing this better: 2) Understanding how people understand the world, and helping them understand it differently

1) Understanding what people are trying to do, and helping them do it better 2) Understanding how people understand the world, and helping them understand it differently

1) Understanding what people are trying to do, and helping them do it better

“There go my people; I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.” —Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, revolutionary, 1807-74

“All buildings are predictions. All predictions are wrong.” Stewart Brand How Buildings Learn, 1994

“All buildings are predictions. All predictions are wrong.” Stewart Brand How Buildings Learn, 1994

designs

Innovation is often about perceiving affordances that others haven’t

Learn from workarounds—what are people trying to do?

Learn from workarounds—what are people trying to do? Can we help them solve their problems?


People are inherently bad at making decisions, so experts need to intervene and help them

People are inherently bad at making decisions, so experts need to intervene and help them

People are inherently OK at making decisions, so experts ought to learn from them

Herbert Simon’s Bounded Rationality

Bounded rationality

Bounded rationality ≠ people being irrational

Bounded rationality = people responding to the limitations and priorities of the context in which they’re making decisions

Bounded rationality = people responding to the limitations and priorities of the context in which they’re making decisions often in different ways

Consider heuristics as something we can learn from (Gerd Gigerenzer; Herbert Simon), and perhaps part of what makes us human, evolutionarily, rather than treating humans as ‘defective’ (Daniel Kahneman; Behavioural Insights Team)

What rules (heuristics) are designers assuming people are following when they’re using a system? What heuristics are they actually using?

Lockton, Harrison, Cain, Stanton, Jennings (2013)

‘Exploring problem-framing through behavioural heuristics’ International Journal of Design

Behaviour change doesn’t have to be negative. It can be about helping people solve the problems they face in everyday life.

‘Paving the cowpaths’


2) Understanding how people understand the world, and helping them understand it differently

•  Mental models and imaginaries •  Meanings, associations, expectations •  People’s perceptions of their own

agency or ability in a situation

Is it better to help people understand the complex systems with which they are engaging?

or should it be about making the ‘right’ behaviour as easy as possible?

Energy’s ‘invisibility’ is a key issue in people’s understanding

‘I think I worked out that through gas and electricity

every year, the average house gets the equivalent of a

bit over three tons of coal delivered completely silently

and without any mess.

‘And go back a hundred years ago and everyone would

have a really good quantitative understanding of how

much energy they used because they had to physically

shovel the stuff. So, that made me stop and think.’

V&A Digital Design Weekend ~13,700 visitors 100 Drawing Energy participants

Drawing Energy

drawingenergy.com

Mental models of complex systems Mental imagery of abstract concepts

What other complex systems are there, that people don’t really understand? (or understand differently?) •  Our own bodies and physical health •  Our mental health •  Finance •  IoT, smart grids •  driverless cars •  the environment, government, the law

People have different understandings of the same systems, and what agency they have within those systems.

How does that understanding affect people’s behaviour? How could design help?

Quantifying everything, but the value of nothing?

Can we help people construct meaning themselves?

Going beyond reductiveness

Image: Delfina Fantini van Ditmar

Dragging Pumped up

How can algorithms understand context?

Enable people to construct their own meaning(s) and understanding(s)

‘Emulsion’ Skrekkøgle, Norway

Are numbers and graphs the best way to talk to people about energy?

What does energy look like? What could it sound like?

Powerchord Sonified home energy monitor

Power ranges Sound files

0-5W

6-30W 31-150W

151-390W 391W - 500W 501W - 900W

901W - 1700W 1701W and over

Nothing played Track A (low intensity) Track B Track C Track D Track E Track F Track G (high intensity)

per appliance, in parallel

http://powerchord.me

The real goal is not just understanding complexity.

The real goal is understanding what agency is possible in a situation, and how to enact change.

How can people change the behaviour of the systems they are in?

This is design for behaviour change, but is not about designers trying to change ‘public behaviour’ as if it were somehow a separate phenomenon.

Can design enable people to understand the wider contexts of their actions, their agency within society, and how they can act to create different outcomes, different futures?

•  understand the world

•  understand people’s understandings of the world

•  help people understand the world

•  help people understand their agency in the world

•  help people use that agency in the world

a progression from understanding to action

•  How are you thinking about people in your work?

•  What assumptions do you have?

•  Where have those assumptions come from?

Thank you! danlockton.co.uk designwithintent.co.uk rca.ac.uk Twitter: @danlockton

Image credits: A Clockwork Orange screenshots: Warner Brothers Crossrail images: Transport for London Billy & Belinda Bollard catalogue image: Marshalls Street Furniture Bleeding billboard: Papakura & Franklin District Council, New Zealand Special License Plates: Popular Science, March 1939 Stoke-on-Trent Council obesity texts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-26021215 Pipe image, Tortilla chips + photocopier, speedometer: found on Failblog, originators unknown. Lying on grass: http://willrl.com/2012/09/un-ami-dun-ami-cest-un-ami/ - photo by Will R.L., taken in Paris. Australian cigarette packaging: oldest version found http://www.barnorama.com/funny-pictures-vol-304/ —originator unknown Speeding best value: oldest version found http://www.justmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bestvalue.jpg —originator unknown Coles / Target Shopping baskets, alarms, printer signs, Apple Watch and pug mouse mat found on Imgur, originators unknown Herbert Simon image from Carnegie Mellon Library: http://diva.library.cmu.edu/webapp/simon/ CarbonCulture at DECC images from CarbonCulture: http://carbonculture.net Siemens controller image from Dr Nicola Combe Nest image from Nest publicity Drawing Energy images: http://drawingenergy.com Times Square image from Retronaut Jawbone app screenshot and Smart Fridge data journeys by Delfina Fantini van Ditmar Repair images by Nazli Terzioglu Pregnancy / packaging metaphor images by Yoon Choi Emulsion image by Skrekkøgle Other images by Dan Lockton