Ferg's Blog » Awareness

Framework of Motivated Behaviour

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:33:20 +0000

As I’ve reported here before I’m in the middle of an MPhil researching the role of motivation in design and how designers can identify and design to encourage motivated behaviour of a suitable nature. I use the term ‘designer’ loosely as I’m not for one minute proposing that Motivation is something that can be prescribed or even should be. At this stage I am in the process of articulating and visualising from my research to date, what motivation looks like or how people might recognise motivation. Some of you may have seen the Motivational Personas I put up a week or so back – thank you so much to all who commented and contributed their thoughts ideas and experience – I’m very grateful! I’m continuing to develop those.

Motivational Framework v0.1 cc Fergus Bisset (click for larger version)

In parallel to those personas, I’m also keen to develop a “Conceptual Framework of Motivation” and begin to elaborate the different levels on which motivation might be observed in oneself or in others. As most behavioural psychologists would doubtless testify, recognising one’s behaviour is the first step to modifying it.

There appears to be a bit of divide in the behavioural design community as to whether people need to recognise either their existing or desired behaviour in order to change it. Some designers and academics arguing that it may be more effective to change behaviour through design without the user having to be aware of it. I had an animated conversation about this over a beer with Frankie Roberto and Dan Lockton. Like I say this is contentious area, but I’m at this stage putting myself fairly firmly in the camp that believe that if behavioural change is to be sustainable, users have to be aware and undertake deliberate and conscious modification of it. Whilst there are doubtless good arguments for the designer as behavioural ‘god’, and I’m more than happy to hear them and discuss them if you wish to share. I find those arguments somewhat belittling of the people that they aim to ‘help’, the typical line in such circumstances being: “that users aren’t always capable of recognising or understanding their ‘needs’ or ‘capabilities’ “. There was a nice quote via Cassie Robinson on this today:

“Accept me as I am & you’ll make me worse. Treat me as what I’m capable of becoming & you’ll help me to become her”

That is not to say that designer’s should shirk all the responsibility onto the user, indeed with reference to the above it perhaps becomes the designer’s responsibility to help that self-reflective process and aid the user in realising their capabilities. The motivational state should be a shared and negotiated agreement between designer, artefact and user, not a diktat by any of those parties. This also means that the designer has an active role and isn’t just subservient to user demands or “lack of vision or creativity“.

Irrespective of this argument and whether user, designer, user-designer or any other stakeholder in the process you will still need to be able to identify, model and measure motivation or any other form of human behaviour for that matter, if you want to change it. I see my motivational personas as aiding identification, whereas I see the attached model, what I’m calling a Motivational Framework as the next step towards being able to model or synthesise motivated behaviour within the wider context of the product or service lifecycle. This understanding is perhaps fundamental to the process of increasing motivational awareness, capability and thereafter designing to empower users in their motivational capabilities.

I would really welcome any feedback you might have on this, particularly in relation to how this might fit into or overlap with your existing creative practice or world view – and I would especially like to hear from you if it seems incompatible with your own views or established methodology.

Designers as Coaches

Fergus Bisset — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:20:54 +0000

In response to my last post, Jonathan Baldwin asked the following question:

The idea of designers who are interested in the ideas rather than the finished artefact raises interesting pedagogical issues. How are they encouraged and rewarded in current educational environments?

His own thoughts can be seen in the comments page and ask some probing questions of the way that design is currently taught and communicated. My own answer to this question is central to my current MPhil research and indeed current day job. Thus I’ve reposted and rephrased some of what I wrote by way of response. Having had my annual review this week it fits in quite nicely with an update on some of my latest thinking. Any feedback, correction or diversions much appreciated!

As a designer who evolved to be a ‘design thinker’ as much as a ‘design doer’ largely as a result of my parallel life as a ski racer and professional (yes honestly, professional) ski instructor, the issue Jonathan highlights is one of big personal interest to me.

The problem occurs I think in that education seems rather quick to push or support people people into either ‘doer’ or ‘thinker’ camp. Doers, learn CAD and workshop skills, manufacturing processes and off they go resigning themselves to never seeing an end user again. I jest, but purely to make my point!

Holistic thinkers, in my experience undernourished in many ‘product’ or ‘graphic’ courses procrastinate in the face of unfulfilling practical assignments or labour and over intellectualise their more fulfilling graphic and research/ethonographic oriented projects.

Either way both hop from lily pad to lily pad of academic requirements without necessarily reflecting on why or whether their current task is serving some wider (social or personal) goal.

Frog Flickr-CC by Rainforest_Harley

Often sold the idea that coming to university will guarantee them employment (and worse) that they deserve such employment by default and based on their perceived rather than actual skills and skillsets, the education system generally doesn’t seem to be good at opening us up to genuine self reflection.

That is self-reflection that occurs as a result of thinking you are good enough to win a competition and then finding out that actually you are not. Education as I see it should expose students to these real and yes sometimes brutal challenges, guiding them not towards ‘explicit solutions’ but rather the tools and mindset to reflect upon and redesign their approach. It is certainly something that any junior designer will experience as soon as they start working in the real world, or particularly at present, trying to find employment in the real world. For more on the ‘dark side of design’ see this post.

The parallel here, is the professional athlete (or serious amateur) for whom life is one big systematic and seriously demanding long term process. A process punctuated by a series of competitions (or perhaps design briefs) in which they have the chance to evaluate their performance against a set of defined rules or criteria. If they are successful there might be some prize money, a car or a free trip to Madeira. If they are not they instead go away with valuable feedback on their performance.

Educators and Designers should (from my perspective and as I am currently outlining in my my masters studies) be the coaches in this analogy. Helping and supporting the learners and users to reflect and re-evaluate their behaviour against long term behavioural, ecological, social and basic needs fulfilment. Providing them with proven tools and methods and analysing and experimenting with new innovative methods where appropriate to incrementally push the boundaries.

If I wanted to employ someone, I wouldn’t want to see their portfolio so much as I would want to see their ‘training plan’ and performance objectives for the duration of their employment (or study) with me. At present this seems to be something that only happens at a post-graduate or in research based education in this and to my knowledge any other country.

Such a strategic, performance oriented view would in my opinion also help overcome the whole Black Swan / ego / genius design problem of assuming that an individual’s past success guarantees future performance. Instead, allowing individuals to stagger their satisfaction and intrinsic reward for their pursuits in a much more incremental and balanced manner.

Originally posted as a comment by Ferg on Ferg’s Blog using Disqus.

Awareness – Getting Caught Speeding

Fergus Bisset — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:24:11 +0000

Building on my earlier posts about motivational design: Another well documented example are the signs that give you feedback on your current speed, usually in residential areas if you are exceeding the speed limit.

Radar Speed Sign - CC - Richard Drdal

This is another example of where social proof (via Dan Lockton) of your speed is being fed back to you to motivate a change in behaviour. In this instance awareness of your speed is similar to the previously posted examples of awareness of your weight or awareness of the ambient noise level.

The difference with this example is that above the feedback on your performance is another sign indicating the desired performance – in this case the maximum legal speed limit. These two signs are therefore highlighting both awareness of the speed limit and it’s relevance to your current behaviour. This not only increases the social impact as everyone can see by what extent you are exceeding the speed limit, but also gives you a goal for the extent by which you have to modify your behaviour.

The added beauty of this example is that of course if you’re behaving like a good law abiding citizen then the lower speed indicating sign is not triggered (it only comes on if you are exceeding the speed limit). Thus, if feedback regarding your current speed is not relevant because you are already within the legal limit, the sign doesn’t trouble you with the extra information (or distraction).

Of course some signs in different parts of the world give you feedback on your speed regardless of whether or not it exceeds the speed limit, which has the effect of another social nudge, but this time a positive one as people can observe that you are within safe limits and therefore a good driver.

What do you think is the best strategy – should the sign only come on if the information it is communicating is relevant or is it better that you receive both positive and negative feedback on your driving performance?

Put another way, in the design of products and services should awareness always be accompanied by information that makes it relevant (as in this example) or is it enough sometimes to simply generate awareness of various environmental or behavioural characteristics without necessarily being explicit about why? (Such as awareness of your weight or awareness of the ambient noise level).

Awareness – AEG Decibel Meter

Fergus Bisset — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:55:33 +0000

How loud is 74db?

Thanks to Gary Thornton for alerting me to this one via BoingBoing.

Another awareness example from kitchen appliance manufacturer AEG, who get this, are advertising how quiet their kitchen appliances are by alerting people to ambient noise levels in the centre of London. They’ve set up a blog to accompany the campaign as well!

What’s perhaps most interesting about this are some of the comments on the BoingBoing blog entry including the comment from #pinup57 stating that in his opinion “Being ‘aware’ of something is UNDERSTANDING something.” His general point being that more information or context is required to make the db reading relevant.

As far as viral campaigns go, this one seems to be going well so far (this blog post of course contributing to that success). But the crucial question is will the awareness that AEG are promoting lead to better sales? Is it a relevant concern for many of the people who will see the advert and does the billboard do enough to draw association between the data (the decibel level) and the information contained in the advertisement (the products AEG are selling)?

Perhaps, much like the previous example awareness here is not so much about making something explicitly relevant to those who interact with it, but rather just sowing a seed of awareness that will then encourage people to go on to make their own associations about its relevance.

This is what I perceive as the distinction between extrinsic awareness - i.e. – encouraging the user to make a direct association of awareness and relevance (the problem and the solution) and intrinsic awareness - encouraging the user to somewhat less predictably, but perhaps more powerfully draw their own associations of relevance. Many of the comments of BoingBoing allude to the fact that people felt that they needed more context or information in order for this advertisement to be relevant. Put another way they wanted more of an extrinsic association between the db meter and what it was saying about the product it was selling (or for that matter the environment it was positioned in). They didn’t like being left to draw their own associations or have to go away and research sound pressure levels!

I’m no advertising exec. but I can but assume that this latter strategy as I identify it, is better for such mass-media advertising that has to be designed to interact with a wide range of different users…

What do you think? Have you seen any other examples of design for intrinsic awareness like this? An advert or product that highlights a problem and leaves you to make up your own mind whether it’s relevant to you? If you have I’d really like to hear about it so please get in touch either by the comments form below or direct to me by email or twitter.

Awareness – Motivating Weightloss

Fergus Bisset — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:21:37 +0000

Motivating Weightloss (via Unpressable Buttons and Gizmodo)

This brilliant example of Awareness being used to motivate behaviour comes via Unpressable Buttons and Gizmodo. This follows nicely on the back of my last post which outlined my current research – building on Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design - applying it to product and service design. I am hoping to assemble a nice collection of examples of user’s Awareness being heightened and used as a motivational tool to engage with a product or service (in this case a Dutch gym). This will in turn outline examples of how designers are currently conciously or unconciously motivating (or demotivating) users or non-users of their products and services.

Of course it could be argued that any billboard or advertisement at such a bus stop might be sucessful in encouraging AWARENESS of the product or service it is promoting. However, what makes this distinct is the fact that it responds to or interacts with the user. Such interactivity or user engagement adjusting the information the advertisement presents to make it RELEVANT to the user. It is this that makes it a significant demonstration of motivational design in action.

Would it work though? Whilst undoubtedly it is designed to give people a nudge (specifically a social nudge) by advertising their weight to the public. My instinct is that the only people who would remain sitting in the seat upon realising what is happening would be those who are quite happy with their weight anyway i.e. those who already possess a high degree of self-confidence (and possibly a gym membership!) That is not to say that the nudge wouldn’t therfore work, just that a negative nudge (embarassing someone) might not be the best way to empower your users. What do you reckon – would it work for you? Have you experienced examples of advertising such as this?

If you have you seen anything like this recently I’d love to hear from you and add it to what I hope will become a large and interesting collection of Motivational Design in action.

Ferg's Blog » Awareness

Framework of Motivated Behaviour

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Designers as Coaches

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Awareness – Getting Caught Speeding

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Awareness – AEG Decibel Meter

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Awareness – Motivating Weightloss

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