This is a fairly comprehensive presentation of the underlying philosophy and research behind my masters work in helping designers visualise and support motivation in the design of everyday products and services. I’ve obviously talked about the development of this work extensively on this blog so I’d like to take the chance to thank all of you who have visited and contributed comments and support – its helped me refine and adapt my ideas thus far and I really appreciate it!

I’m hoping to add an audio summary of the presentation at some point, but otherwise the presentation gives an overview of the foundations of my framework of motivation in design, the research behind it and then a few examples of products and services that have either been directed by this conceptualisation or whose success as ‘motivational platforms’ can be interpreted by using the framework.

People may also recognise a few of the case studies from the Nordic Service Design Conference – thanks to the presenters their for their explanations, this presentation also served as an opportunity for me to pass on what I’d learned and enjoyed from that conference to my colleagues at the HCDI at Brunel.

As ever comments and questions are gratefully appreciated and if you are interested in finding our more or understanding how this framework can be applied to your own design or service propositions then please get in touch.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

Other Relevant Posts...

• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• July 10th, 2009 -- Language Matters – is ‘design thinking’ dead? (1)
• June 18th, 2009 -- Is Design a Skilled or Procedural Process? Or Both? (2)
• February 15th, 2010 -- A Big Day for British Youth and Winter Sports – An Inspiration For The Rest of Us? (2)
• January 14th, 2010 -- Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation (0)

My research into Human Motivation and its relationship with design has seen me exploring a lot of organismic theories of human behaviour, those are the theories that suggest we are naturally predisposed or energised to grow or seek new challenges, affiliation or environments in order to remain healthy, happy and fulfilled.

Obviously not everyone is in agreement on the underlying mechanisms of human motivation and behaviour, there are many models, but these are issues that we as designers revisit often in the form of the well intentioned but hideously over-cited and rarely understood Maslow’s Hierarchy is based on such a humanist/organismic perspective.

My own research is exploring a newer an more updated model of which I attach an early draft below, one that also represents the iterative and dynamic nature of human behaviour – something that is overlooked in Maslow’s version.

My model and the research that underpins it (predominantly Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory) indicates that in order to remain psychologically fulfilled we need to balance three psychological needs for AUTONOMY (Self Reflection, Independence, Empowerment), RELATEDNESS (Socialisation, Care and Concern for and from others), COMPETENCE (Feelings of efficacy, self control and accomplishment).

Deci and Ryan’s premise (and mine) is that only by balancing and fulfilling these core psychological needs will we be truely HAPPY and HEALTHY. My model attempts to illustrate how these INTRINSIC (some might say INNATE) psychological needs are often balanced against EXTRINSIC design factors and criteria and just as with Maslow’s Hierarchy if we want as designers to design systems and services that leave us feeling fulfilled they will need to address all of these INNATE HUMAN with EXPLICIT DESIGN capabilities and specifications.

If an intentionally or accidentally designed system cannot SELF REGULATE, or as you say Arne, “balance” EXTRINSIC and INTRINSIC demands it ultimately will become unsustainable.

To help make this idea more explicit I will elaborate – much of industrial design is focussed on the SENSORY features of products, services and systems, whilst interaction design and ‘soft design disciplines’ are interested in COGNITIVE levels of interaction. Recently of course, as most of us here will be aware Design has begun to shift towards more ORGANISATIONAL or ‘Service’ perspectives in an attempt to satisfy the ‘NEEDS’ of its users and customers. Or perhaps if I put it more cynically – in an attempt to continue to generate value for stakeholders in the design process. This shift in the focus of design, as is well documented, has occurred as a result of technology that initially enable ‘interfaces’ and more recently high levels of social connectivity and networking.

With my model, I hope to help move design one step closer to exactly the call you’ve made here Arne, by helping designers to understand how their expertise in manipulation of SENSORY, COGNITIVE and ORGANISATIONAL affordances and data can be better focussed on meeting users genuine SOCIAL, COMPETENCE and AUTONOMY needs and in turn designing systems that are by consequence self motivating, sustaining and perhaps as you allude here ‘caring’.

What does everyone think?

Other Relevant Posts...

• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)
• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• February 15th, 2010 -- A Big Day for British Youth and Winter Sports – An Inspiration For The Rest of Us? (2)
• January 14th, 2010 -- Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation (0)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)

In his comments he wrapped up a lot of the wider tensions within the Service Design community about the relationship between academia and practice that I know are hot topics of discussion at London events such as Service Design drinks and Service Design thinks at the moment, as well as clearly the Service Design Network Conference held this week.

Indeed, a lot of the background to this post and my own work is fuelled by an urge to bridge some of this tension – between theory and practice as Andy put it –  this is synthesis in the truest sense of the word.

For anyone interested further background to these issues can be found here and here.

If I created a strawman yesterday in my discussion of what was said at the Service Design Conference then I apologise. I suppose the essence of what I was attempting to highlight was that despite any personal philosophical or pragmatic differences of opinion that might exist within the community, there appears to be two prevalent ways in which designers classify users. One is to see users as reactive i.e. responsive to extrinsic constraints and the other is to see them as proactive i.e. energised by internal ideas and ambitions (goal oriented).

The reality seems to be that we as humans fluctuate between these states probably faster than we’ll ever be able to measure or generalise accurately (its not going to stop me trying ) and thus we as Service Designers rely on the ethnographic approaches Andy mentions or laboratory based scientific experiments that are well documented in scientific journals to attempt to understand behaviour.

Whether designers are fully concious of the fact that they are making these judgements about users is another issue open to debate and discussion. Indeed, the oft cited definition of Design Research is “to make explicit what is otherwise implicit in the everyday practice of design.” Thus by raising this discussion, I was simply attempting to raise this question within the minds of us designers about how we implicitly view the user we are designing for? As I mention above the answer appears to be as either ‘passive’ or ‘active’ depending on circumstance, context or which particular part of the design or use phase we might be referring to.

Education systems are interesting service examples themselves in how they attempt to balance between encouraging creativity and intrinsically motivated behaviour whilst also controlling these processes with structured curriculum and routines. Indeed, any service we can think of will attempt to strike a balance between generating and controlling value (or creativity, or energy, or money) for all the stakeholders involved.

As Andy clarified in his comment on the last post, Birgit Mager was talking at the Service Design Network Conference about users behaviour being a function of Attitude and The Environment. On further research this would appear to also share perspective with that of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988) which is also based on Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980).

This classifies user behaviour as a product of:

• Attitude (Autonomy)
• Social Pressure (Relatedness)
• Perceived Behavioural Control (Competence)

What I’m interested in as part of my masters is how we can design systems and services that enhance user perception of these three inherent human psychological capabilities. Doing so successfully or even unsuccessfully will result in behavioural change, but doing so successfully and encouraging users to reflect on these capabilities will result in sustainable behavioural change (at least that’s the theory).

I’m incredibly fortunate that through this platform and as a result of contributions such as Andy’s I can also modify my own attitude and perceived competence as a result of being able to relate my work to you all.

Andy is right though we need to do more to work together and bridge the gaps between academia and professional practice. I don’t plan to stay in academia forever but whilst I’m still here I’d be interested to hear from you all… do you have any questions about Motivation? Is there something that you as a practitioner are working on and feel like you could use a bit of academic insight or research on? Please get in touch here, via twitter or through the comments link below.

Other Relevant Posts...

• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)
• September 13th, 2009 -- The Philosophy of Service Design (4)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• October 4th, 2009 -- Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum (1)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)

Greatest Goal II by Scottwills on Flickr (CC)

These concerns have come to the fore, with the news that Birgit Mager was citing a rough approximation of Kurt Lewin’s field theory http://3.ly/BfAE (thanks Dan for the clarification) in her Service Design Network Conference presentation. Her version of it (via @apolaine) apparently read something like:

“Birgit Mager: “B=(A:E) – behaviour is a function of attitude and environment” #sdnc09“

Whilst Andy warned against me taking this too seriously, I have  number of concerns at such an idea being used as representative of a Service Design approach (at least as I perceive it). Simply, for the passivity and clinical (read robotic) view it offers of user motives and behaviour. I think my concerns were shared a little later by @iterations:

“@apolaine Don’t we know most of this stuff from Social Psychology? Any special twist of these ideas in relation to Service Design? #sdnc09“

Good question Ralf, particularly in light of the follow up summary of Birgit’s presentation, Service Designers can and should be digging a little deeper than this in their attempt to understand and influence user behaviour.

“Birgit Mager: “Service Design and Behavioral Change: 1. Understand the current behavior, the motives, gains and consequences.” #sdnc09 again via @apolaine

Put simply, these interpretations of Birgit’s presentation infer an incredibly passive view of the user and of user capabilities: That if we dangle a big enough carrot in front of users (the motives and gains) or hit them with a big enough stick (the consequences) we will be able to sustainably and successfully influence their behaviour.

Whilst I’m relying on a few tweets for my evidence and should probably exercise caution against dangerous oversimplification, Birgit does appear to express that the user has “an attitude” and the environment has influence on user behaviour, both statements with which I agree. My interpretation is that as Service Designers we should seek to understand a user’s current attitude and the experiences that have created their behaviour, before unlocking and empowering their experience and capabilities through co-design activities. This is, in my view the so-called ‘service-design twist’.

To quote Dorynei (2001):

“In current research the concept of a need has been replaced by the concept of a goal.” (p.25)

And further to quote Locke and Latham (1990).

“The more specific [that goal] the easier it is to monitor it.”

“The more challenging [that goal] the greater the satisfaction it presents.”

“The more personally relevant [that goal] the  more engaged the user participation in fulfilling it.”

“The more attainable [the goal] the more sustained the human behaviour will be towards achieving it.”

This is not a new concept and I wouldn’t claim to be experienced in defining co-creative activity. But the concept of articulating user requirements through goal-oriented activity is more up to date than the idea of the environment being the primary influence on human behaviour – a world view which is 40-60 years old, depending on your interpretation. Interestingly, of a similar era to the concept of ‘user needs’ and Mr Maslow’s Hierarchy. The concept of goals and outcomes  cropped up in an online discussion with @designthinkers this morning and helped spur me into sharing this post and some of my on going research into motivation:

@designthinkers: ”Being successful in life is being able to keep setting new goals for yourself, and enjoying the road trying to get there”

Service Design as an approach, is not 40-60 years old and in order to be successful as a profession itself, perhaps needs to continue to evolve the way it visualises and attempts to understand user behaviour and the processes that regulate it.

What do you think, is the environment the primary influence on human behaviour? Or is it a person’s attitude? Are these entities distinct?

As a designer which one would you prefer to focus on with the aim of creating sustainable behavioural change?

Other Relevant Posts...

• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)
• October 4th, 2009 -- Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum (1)
• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)
• September 13th, 2009 -- The Philosophy of Service Design (4)

From http://www.frankieroberto.com/weblog/708

“I love the list of ‘fictional universes’ on Wikipedia. It contains everything from The Simpsons to Star Trek to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The Fictional Universes database on Freebase is even better, as it contains thousands of details about the universes, such as species, objects, and even ethnicities.

Anyway, I thought I’d start to address this lack of understanding about the Lego Universe with a look at some of the companies and organisations that serve the Lego urban-dwelling minifigs. These mostly occur in the sets that have been variously title ‘Lego Town’, ‘Lego City’, and ‘Lego World City’ (I’m not sure whether this means there are multiple urban areas, or just one ever-growing one).”

Lego Train Logos (courtesy Frankie Roberto)

It’s a great read – thanks Frankie. It’s also got me thinking how important, these imagination driven ‘universes’ are. Do a whole generation of designer’s owe Lego, Playmobil and Mechano a big debt? What will the effect on design be of the latest generation of networked entertainment and computer games – will it encourage design collaboration and global interaction?

Will the increasingly vivid toys and computer games make the next generation of designers more or less imaginative?

How could toys be designed or redesigned to encourage and inspire the next generation of designers?

Other Relevant Posts...

• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• February 15th, 2010 -- A Big Day for British Youth and Winter Sports – An Inspiration For The Rest of Us? (2)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• October 4th, 2009 -- Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum (1)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)
• October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)
• September 26th, 2009 -- Museums, User Empowerment and Defining Service Value (0)

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.

Other Relevant Posts...

• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• August 7th, 2009 -- Competitive Anxiety – Are Service Design Competitions a Paradox? (5)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• September 13th, 2009 -- The Philosophy of Service Design (4)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• June 18th, 2009 -- Is Design a Skilled or Procedural Process? Or Both? (2)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)

Rybinsk 2007 Podium - Photo: Pete Vordenberg - www.teamtoday.org

My initial reaction can be seen in the comments section in that last link, for the most part I am a little disappointed at the near unamimous and public way this competition appears to have been rejected by those who otherwise do so much to promote and positively communicate Service Design here in the UK and around the world.

What is it about this competition I wonder, and it seems competitions in general, that these service designers are opposed to? And from my perspective how much might service designers be distancing themselves from huge numbers of the population and public they claim to represent should they reject such ideas?

Jeff Howard and Jonathan Baldwin impressively and compellingly argue in the comments of that last post that such competive structure does not support the co-design process that is such a fundamental part of service design. But another post yesterday from Joel Bailey got me thinking perhaps its a bit deeper than that. Perhaps the very people (whether male or female as Joel contends) who are attracted to Service Design and it’s processes are those that generally speaking might not relish the idea of a competition.

Carol Dweck (2000) talks about Entity and Incremental ‘implict theories’. In otherwords, two distinct ways in which people percieve the world. There are those that believe that knowledge (or design) are static or intellectual entities and constructs. These constructs can be communicated by linear processes and static hierarchical diagrams. These would be ‘Entity‘ oriented individuals, who to generalise, are those more likely to prefer dealing in physical entities. In the case of design this would be the more traditional graphic or product ‘physically’ oriented design approaches.

According to Dweck the other sort of individuals consider Knowledge (and design) to be more fluid and incrementally elaborated and constructed, more open to debate and interpretation. These individuals are more likely to be interested in the process of design than they are in the final outcomes or physical representations of the design process. This is perhaps because they understand that these physical entities are fleeting representations or put another way simply the tip of the iceberg in the design process. I know for a fact I fall into this category, although I still see and have personally experienced huge value from participating in competitions and dealing and manufacturing in physical entities and constructs.

I don’t know about you, but I know which category I would place service designers (and systems thinkers) in. The latter Incremental category and this leads me to another difference that Dweck highlights, the difference in how these two individuals approach to challenges.

According to Dweck Entity Theorists relish competition, whilst Incremental Theorists (Service Designers) prefer collaboration. Dweck in fact places these two on a sliding scale – indicating that by her perception the two ideals are polar opposites. Perhaps, there are also correlations between males and females as to which gender is more likely to fall in which category. Personally I don’t see gender based distinctions as valuable and find Dweck’s a far more useful categorisation of characteristics of those by my interpretation more likely to engage with Service Design and it’s methods.

How are you being competitive? - Photo: Pete Vordenberg - Teamtoday.org

The one concern however that this insight highlights, and it echos my reservations about Service Designers seemingly being so quick to dismiss this competition this week is, that whilst Service Designers might be Incremental Thinkers and theorists I would bet the vast majority of the population at least in the ‘old world’ are not. This would explain why so many of us participate in competitive sport and value physical objects. Thus, whilst Jeff would still maintain that the service design community should not support this competition. I would encourage the community to do so, as a chance to better understand and resolve the challenges involved and of which we are all aware in communicating Service Design to those with different (Explicit) ideals and perspectives. After all, is holistic and flexible thinking not truely the purpose of co-design and the value that service designers are capable of offering?

Other Relevant Posts...

• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• August 9th, 2009 -- Designers as Coaches (1)
• October 4th, 2009 -- Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum (1)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)
• October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)
• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)

Pecha Kucha 09: Stephen Stott from Made in Brunel 09 on Vimeo.

Other Relevant Posts...

• January 14th, 2010 -- Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation (0)
• December 17th, 2009 -- You Say You Want A Revolution… a Service Design Revolution (2)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)
• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 29th, 2009 -- Theories of Planned Behaviour (1)
• October 28th, 2009 -- User Needs are Outdated, We Should Be Designing User Goals… (1)
• October 4th, 2009 -- Designing Design Research and Generating Momentum (1)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)

Fabricant closes his discussion on the ethics of Persuasive Design and User Centred Design with the following statement:

“users are not very self-aware. Shouldn’t designers be?”

The article serves as a discussion of how some of the currently employed or mooted Persuasive Design techniques might be considered by users to be “contrived or manipulating”. If I’m being honest, there’s not much more contrived or manipulative than his closing statement in the article, I’ll repeat it again:

“users are not very self-aware. Shouldn’t designers be?”

Hardly a statement likely to breed trust confidence or satisfaction in the design profession by their clients and consumers. Coming a few day’s after I’d read this article by Kicker’s Jen Bove summarising this presentation which also addressed the issue of ‘user needs’. I’ve been struck by the conflicting views of designers in their assessment of user needs and the best ways to repond to them.

There appear to be those designers who view their users as helpless ‘pinballs‘ (thanks Dan!) or those who have belief and trust in their users and wait for it…might even be prepared to involve and empower them in the design process. To clarify it seems Fabricant is positioning himself as only willing to engage with users if as a design professional he maintains a superiority or controlling influence. Whilst Bove in her talk seems more content by empowering her users through co-design and collaboration and admits rightly that as a designer she “has more questions than answers”.

I discussed some of these same ideas in my last post here about user’s expectancy for success – as my current research into designing motivationally engaging experiences demonstrates – the first step to engaging with your users is by making them aware of whatever new technology you want them to use. Thus, in a Motivational Design approach encouraging Awareness is the first responsibility of a designer. Making this new pattern of behaviour or technology relevant involves understanding not what user’s need, but rather how they learn and adapt to new situations and circumstances – their skill acquisition process. As a designer it is fundamental that you believe that your users are capable of and you empower them for behavioural change otherwise you, the designer and facilitator of their new behaviour or experience, are damned from the start by damning them.

The challenge as I see it for designers is being content to play a secondary supportive or coaching role in the process of persuasive design “Encouragement” as Albert Bandura might refer to it. Too often it seems that designers are more intent on pushing their own “genius of insight or perception” or the latest “cool technology” as opposed to truely recognising and supporting what users need or the best way to engage with them.

Industrial Design may have evolved from a Bauhaus ideology of making things aesthetically pleasing so that users felt inclined to purchase them over less attractive products and I concede it may have done so with some success, evolving to the point where designers are polished and capable enough to address more than simply a user’s perceived aesthetic need but also more recently their percieved emotional and social needs as well.

This as I discuss towards the end of this previous post has lead to a sitution where designers are declaring as Fabricant does in his Core 77 article this week:

What if the ‘users’ themselves are the problem? What if users represent not a coherent set of needs but a messy mix of desires and influences?

From where I’m standing it’s actually designer’s messy mix of desires, influences and egos that are the problem. Through the work on my Masters on Motivational Design and Public Engagement I plan to share with you an alternate approach to Persuasive Design, one that believes in supporting a user’s confidence and skill acquisition process, not diminishing it.

Other Relevant Posts...

• September 27th, 2009 -- What Are User Needs? (3)
• December 3rd, 2009 -- Managing Motivation (0)
• November 30th, 2009 -- Motivational Design Framework v.0.1 (2)
• October 1st, 2009 -- Framework of Motivated Behaviour (0)
• February 15th, 2010 -- A Big Day for British Youth and Winter Sports – An Inspiration For The Rest of Us? (2)
• October 30th, 2009 -- Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective (1)
• January 14th, 2010 -- Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation (0)
• September 21st, 2009 -- Motivational Design Personas (9)
• July 13th, 2009 -- Making Design a Concrete Experience (0)
• December 9th, 2009 -- Modelling Motivation in the Design of Products, Systems and Services (0)