(introducing behavioural heuristics) EDIT (April 2013): An article based on the ideas in this post has now been published in the International Journal of Design – which is open-access, so it’s free to read/share. The article refines some of the ideas in this post, using […]
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Architecture, urbanism, design and behaviour: a brief review
by Dan Lockton Continuing the meta-auto-behaviour-change effort started here, I’m publishing a few extracts from my PhD thesis as I write it up (mostly from the literature review, and before any rigorous editing) as blog posts over the next few months. The idea of how […]
dConstructing a workshop
A couple of weeks ago, at dConstruct 2011 in Brighton, 15 brave participants took part in my full-day workshop ‘Influencing behaviour: people, products, services and systems’, with which I was very kindly assisted by Sadhna Jain from Central Saint Martins. As a reference for the […]
Design and behaviourism: a brief review
by Dan Lockton In a meta-auto-behaviour-change effort both to keep me motivated during a very protracted PhD write-up and demonstrate that the end is in sight, I’m going to be publishing a few extracts from my thesis (mostly from the literature review, and before any […]
Design with Intent toolkit 1.0 now online
It’s been a long time coming, but a year after v.0.9, the new Design with Intent toolkit, DwI v.1.0, is ready. Officially titled Design with Intent: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design, it’s in the form of 101 simple cards, each illustrating a particular […]
Learning from game design: 11 gambits for influencing user behaviour
Games are great at engaging people for long periods of time, getting them involved, and, if we put it bluntly, influencing people’s behaviour through their very design. Something conspicuously missing from Design with Intent v.0.9 is a satisfactory treatment of the kinds of techniques for […]
What I didn’t get round to writing about in 2009
A lot of people send me ideas and suggestions for the blog, for which I’m very grateful indeed, but which I don’t always get round to investigating or posting or dealing with in a timely manner. Or sometimes I note them, use them as examples […]
User-centred design for energy efficiency in buildings: TSB competition
The deadline’s fast approaching (mid-day 17th Dec) for the UK Technology Strategy Board‘s ‘User-centred design for energy efficiency in buildings’ competition [PDF] – there’s an introduction from Fionnuala Costello here. This is an exciting initiative which aims to bring together (in a 5-day ‘sandpit’) people […]
Through London with the DwI goggles on
As I’ve admitted before, having the idea of ‘design that’s intended to influence behaviour’ on my mind a lot of the time does sometimes lead to seeing everything with that filter in place: [It’s] a kind of conspiracy bias, ascribing to design intent that which […]
Three quotes from clever people
“Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artefacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the […]
Thoughts on the ‘fun theory’
The ‘Piano Staircase’ from Volkswagen’s thefuntheory.com The Fun Theory (Rolighetsteorin), a competition / campaign / initiative from Volkswagen Sweden – created by DDB Stockholm – has been getting a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks from both design-related people and other commentators […]
What’s been going on recently
RSA Design Directions 2009/10 The RSA’s 2009/10 Design Directions competition has been launched, which means up and down the country there are design students and new graduates working on one of the pretty wide selection of briefs. Given the RSA’s aim of ‘removing barriers to […]
Some interesting projects (Part 2)
Following on from Part 1, here are a couple more very interesting student projects linking design and behaviour. This time, both involve providing feedback on the impact or costs of everyday behaviours in order to get people to think. Tim Holley’s Tio project, developed in […]
Some interesting projects (Part 1)
I’ve come across some interesting student projects at various shows and exhibitions this summer, some of which address the relationship between design and people’s behaviour in different situations, and some of which explicitly aim to influence what people do and think. Here’s a selection (Part […]
A survey for designers: more books to win
Following last week’s card-sorting exercise (which went really well – thanks to everyone who took part), here’s something a bit more open-ended and ongoing. I’m trying to find out how designers and design teams (in-house or consultancies) who’ve worked on influencing user behaviour think about […]
Cialdini on the Beach
Self-monitoring is one of the most common persuasive techniques used in interface design: basically, giving people feedback on what they’re doing and what they’ve done. There are lots of issues about which kinds of feedback work best, in what circumstances, pairing it with feedforward, i.e. […]