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Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

As part of the ongoing promotion of his new book Drive, Dan Pink gives an interview discussing some of the underlying theories and principles which he has repackaged as a management book. I’m looking forward to reading the book which comes out here in the UK at the end of this month. Dan is also due to speak at the RSA in a couple of weeks time which again I’m very much looking forward to.

I think this publication is very exciting for those of us involved in motivation research and for forward thinking business managers at whom this book seems to be aimed. Based on both this interview and his Ted talk last year Dan seems to be leveraging, at least conceptually, Hullian Drive Theory which allows him utilise the straightforward metaphor and illustrate the important point that motivation is about energisation of human behaviour. This theory whilst hugely influential in the field of motivation and educational psychology is largely discredited now by the more recent interpretation that it does not fully accomdate explanation of Avoidance behaviour. To put more simply, Drive Theory does not explain risk taking or more intrinsic forms of pleasure seeking behaviour. For a discussion on Approach-Avoidance behaviour and freely downloadable research papers see http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/.

It’s nice though to see Pink make mention of Autonomy as a component of motivation and a factor which forms a big part of Deci and Ryan’s Self Determination Theory which I have been leveraging heavily in my own work on designing motivation. I feel that their Organismic theory of motivation is far more adaptable and useful as an explanation for motivation than Drive Theory mentioned above. The question of how designers can utilise an organismic theory of motivation is the subject of my recent chapter contributed to the This is Service Design Thinking publication. It’s perhaps apt that Self Determination Theory and Service Design Thinking share the same acronym as they are well placed to conceptualise and design for intrinsic, rather than extrinsic forms of motivation.

It’s nice to see the mention of a sports person as a metaphor for motivated behaviour and I would hope that this reoccurs throughout the book, as someone who has myself become so interested in motivation by approaching it (no pun intended ) from a sports psychology and elite performance background.

Davos 15km - P. Vordenberg - teamtoday.org

I agree ultimately with Pink’s sentiment that people generally need more feedback, annual reviews and even biannual reviews are not going to motivate employees in the best possible way. But I’m a bit confused then as towards the end of the above interview he is so quick to dismiss (or avoid) addressing the work on Anticipated Feedback (Bandura) as a motivator. The original research on this can be found here, but it basically suggests that anticipated social feedback (as a feed-forward mechanism) is a major primary motivator in individuals. Again, put more simply, this is the notion that if you can visualise a positive response to your work you are more likely to be motivated towards and successful in accomplishing it. This is also another reason why I think Service Design Thinking with its emphasis on visualising complexity to understand it and adapt it is so well placed to understand and promote motivation. I’d hoped that in the current era of social media and game changing, hierarchy busting, technology and given that he is speaking to a blogger for a video that is being posted on YouTube Pink might have addressed this more fully…

Either way I think this publication signals that 2010 will be the year that Motivation really hits the mainstream, similarly perhaps to how ‘Design Thinking’ hit the mainstream last year off the back of Brown and Martin’s publications. Much like with those two volumes though, one could imagine that the release of Pink’s book signals that there will be an increase in demand amongst senior management for creative and innovative practitioners who not only understand motivation but also who possess the tools to create and facilitate motivating systems, products and services.

What do you think? Do you think 2010 will be the year of motivation or are there other emerging trends and topics that trump motivation in the understanding and design for behavioural change?

(Thanks to @arnoldbeekes for the original link)

Tags: Awareness, Design Research, Design Thinking, Human Centred Design, Intrinsic Motivation, Motivation, Motivational Design, Persuasive Design, Product Design, Psychology, Self Determination Theory, Self Efficacy, Service Design, User Empowerment
Posted in Design Research, Design Thinking, Motivation, Motivational Design, Service Design | View Comments

Motivational Design Framework v.0.1

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Apologies for the recent blogging hiatus, in large part due to the launch last week of The Ergonomics Real Design Exhibition at the Design Museum which I have been working on over the last year and half. I’m also recently back from the excellent Nordic Service Design Conference in Oslo. I will post more on both of those things in due course. In the meantime, I’ve also been working on my MPhil in Intrinsically Motivating Design and recently developed a model that I hope to validate as a tool to help designers design Intrinsically Motivating and behaviourally self sustaining systems, services and products. I’ve posted this on Wenovski as well so apologies for the cross posting if you’ve already seen it there. I’d really welcome your feedback on this and if you have any questions or would be interested in offering me an opportunity to validate the model then give me shout either in the comments below or at hello@fergusbisset.com.

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?

Tags: Awareness, Constructivism, Design Research, Design Thinking, Dialectics, Human Centred Design, Intrinsic Awareness, Intrinsic Motivation, Motivation, Motivational Design, Public Engagement, Relevance, Self Determination Theory, Self Efficacy, Service Design, skill based processes, systems theory, User Empowerment, User Perceptions
Posted in Framework of Motivated Behaviour, Motivational Design, Persuasive Design, Public Engagement, Service Design | View Comments

Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Jason Cooper (@jasecoop) fired out some quick Twitter research this afternoon inquiring after people’s perceptions of the self-service checkout machines we are increasingly faced with at supermarkets these days. These have been in the press this week as Tesco announced that it is to open it’s first ‘automated’ store in Northampton.

I have been meaning to write about these for awhile, so thanks Jase for pushing me in that direction.

M&S Self Service Checkout from jaygooby on Flickr

These machines as most of us will doubtless testify are incredibly frustrating. Not once have I ever used one without the human operator having to be summoned to remedy some sensor malfunction or barcode scanning problem. Yet, every time I see one available, even if simultaneously offered the option of a human operator I seem inexplicably drawn to the automatic machine and it’s purgatorial system processes.

Apart from a potential underlying masochistic streak, the only logical explanation I can find is that it is the perception that it will save me time (efficiency) that drives me to persist with these things. Doubtless this is the win for Tesco too. Yet, no sooner have I pressed it’s big green greasy start button and started scanning than it fails to register me place one of my items in the ‘bagging area’. This usually results in a near instant increase in blood pressure and me swearing blind I’ll never use one again.

Indeed, it is always an issue with the ‘bagging area’ on these machines – with either the sensor not registering that you have placed the item there after scanning it or the sensor detecting that somehow there is “an unidentified item in the bagging area.” In either eventuality it stalls and requires someone to come and prod your shopping or swipe their golden keycard until it is satisfied again. Urghh – even thinking about it makes me tense. No wonder that some of the responses that Jason’s questions were generating this afternoon on these machines were strong in their tone.

From a motivational design perspective however, these machines should really be a hands down winner, as I discussed here and again yesterday. The literature would suggest that anything that promotes our autonomy – our ability to do our shopping ourself, should be a strong motivational tool. The fact that at least until this week in Northampton, customers had a choice between machine and human was also a strong piece of motivational design as it offered otherwise inclined service users the chance to further their relatedness (social) goals for the shopping experience. If they preferred to have someone scan their shopping for them instead of scan their own shopping autonomously.

As I perceive it where these ‘self-service’ checkouts fall down at the moment is in how they fail to fulfil our competence needs. Every time the sensor fails or the barcode is dirty or scratched, we can’t help but take it personally. The machine and it’s support processes make us feel incompetent. Not so much the fact it doesn’t work, as Eddie Izzard highlights brilliantly that has always been a integral part of supermarket shopping.

No, its the fact that in the majority of these ‘problem’ situations we require some other (usually slouching and disinterested) bod to come and fix it for us that these machines leave us feeling so drained and bitter. Further, it is the fact that they usually have to do this three or four times in one transaction that makes us want to burn effigies of the things. And yet next time round, and for me at least, the allure of autonomously being able to scan my own shopping is enough to suck me back into it’s beeping, monotone voiced vortex.

How could all this be made better then? Well, I’m quite keen to open that question up to you…I also kind of think that this is what Jase is away working on right now…

But, first things first Tesco could sort that ‘bagging area’ sensor out, either by eliminating it completely and demonstrating a bit more trust that users aren’t going to scan one item whilst sneaking others into their bags – surely that sort of behaviour is far more effectively prevented by the humans in Tesco’s employ. Indeed the more I reflect on it, this really seems like a engineering function (feedback process) that looked great on the system flowchart and in the product presentation pitch but that simply is not up to the demands of real world, non-expert operation. Probably as a result of a complete and utter lack of real world testing prior to installation, and the fact that the product development process clearly doesn’t accommodate an iterative design process or user feedback even now the product is in operation.

Most of all, and the biggest design issue from a Motivational Design point of view, is the fact that when this flawed functionality inevitably fails, the staff should look us in the eye and explain to us why the machine is having this problem as they solve it for us. Such increased transparency (or supported user skill and knowledge acquisition) will empower users to at least feel like they understand the technology a bit better. Such understanding or ‘mental model’ will help users in the event of a problem feel superior and more capable than the machine. Such an enhanced perception of capability will help restore a little of the behavioural equilibrium within the human-product interaction and ensure that we are just as motivated next time we visit to use the self-service systems. This is indeed, the paradox of automation – the more automated a process the more we rely on non-automated components of the system. Its also why all the unions, consumers groups and sensationalist press should stop their moaning about the so-called “death of the supermarket operator”.

In summary, if Tesco plan to introduce these machines nationwide, they will have to take a more holistic view of the service these machines are supposed to provide as well as realising the fundamental role that their human staff play in ensuring a smooth and seamless consumer experience.

What do you think? How would you redesign these machines to motivate more people to use them?

Tags: Awareness, Design for Self Service, Design Research, Human Centred Design, Intrinsic Motivation, Motivation, Motivational Design, Public Engagement, Real World Design, Relevance, Self Determination Theory, Self Efficacy, Self Service, Service Design, systems theory, the difference between novice and expert behaviour, User Empowerment, User Perceptions
Posted in Fergus Bisset | View Comments

Design for Change

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

The process behind this blog has always aimed to be one big post a week that framed a particular aspect of my research, followed by a series of smaller supporting or conflicting posts throughout the week. These smaller posts intending to encourage contribution and consensus by the end of the week and are intended to focus on real world or anecdotal application of that week’s research question. Thus far I’ve shared thoughts and observations from my research into Intrinsically Motivating Design and supported Skill Acquisition in the design of products and services. I’ve also volunteered some of the thinking from my experiences in designing for public engagement.

Ever been left frustrated by a system, product or service that didn't work the way you wanted it to? Photo from: Maryam Kh

This week I’m going to try and do it in more of an active problem solving sort of way, responding to the design brief of designing for democratic regime change. In other words, as a designer of systems, products and services what can I contribute from my research to enable and empower individuals striving to undermine an autocratic regime. Contentious – yes. Interesting – yes. Educational – yes.

Hopefully, if I do a good enough job, this will be a nice theoretical study into motivational design and to positively influencing human behaviour. Indeed, this exercise might provide an insight into understanding contrary behaviour, which is to say systems, products and services that aren’t designed to motivate or empower their users or might be actively implemented to demotivate and dis-empower them. My hope is that this exercise will provide a valuable and unique insight into better designing dynamic systems and services to better support the intentions and will of the majority of it’s users. I hope you will see this as something worth contributing to or at least broadcasting further afield, it is certainly not intended to be prescriptive and as far as it is published here is purely a theoretical discussion, although clearly influenced by powerful recent world events.

The video that inspired this post. What motivates the behaviour that lead to this incident and what can we as designers do to prevent its reoccurance?

Tags: Awareness, Democracy, Design for Regime Change, Design Research, Design Thinking, Human Centred Design, Information, Intrinsic Motivation, Iran Election, Public Engagement, Relevance, Service Design, Social Nudge, User Perceptions
Posted in Design Process, Design Thinking, Design for Regime Change, Motivational Design, Public Engagement, Service Design | View Comments

An Attempt to Find the Soul of Ergonomics

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Jasper van Kuijk at Uselog has also been thinking about the impact of Ergonomics being so heterogeneous yesterday.

http://www.uselog.com/2009/05/many-definitions-of-human-factors-and.html

His point that “any self-respecting profession is obsessed with trying to define itself” is interesting. Do you agree or do you support the alternate idea of some service designers that in creative professions its much better to leave the definition flexible as it encourages innovation?

Tags: Advertising, Awareness, Public Engagement, Relevance, User Perceptions
Posted in Ergonomics and Human Factors, Public Engagement | View Comments

Hetero or Homo – What’s The Engagement Strategy?

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

What is the impact on business of refusing to define the aims and purposes of your profession?

Choosenick and Jeff have been mulling over the respective merits of trying to define the professional discipline of service design. This resonates with me as it is an issue at the heart of a number of projects I have worked on in the recent past, not least my current work on the Ergonomics – Real Design Exhibition that will be opening at The Design Museum in November. How do you define what lies at the heart of what it is you do? Or in marketing speak – how do you define your unique selling point? Is variety your speciality or do you possess a variety of specialisms?

Bjork's Homogenic - are you?

My current mission (with The Design Museum, Mark Young at The Human Centred Design Institute at Brunel University , The Ergonomics Society and Laura Grant Associates) is to help define what it means to be an Ergonomist, then engage the public with the work that Ergonomists do. In other words we are striving to make Ergonomics relevant, meaningful and engaging to members of the public, who in turn might not have any prior knowledge or experience of Ergonomics.

Like Service Designers many Ergonomists work on both a macro (environmental) level as well as at a more focused and specific (product, interface and touchpoint) level. Both work across a broad range of industries and professions with a similarly broad range of users, from novice to expert. Indeed, neither discipline will perhaps thank me for pointing this out – but the these two ‘professions’ are incredibly similar. Not least in their (in)ability to define succinctly where their expertise actually lies. In the words of an experienced Ergonomist Salas (2008).

“Diversity is our strength; our asset . . . and our weakness and liability as well… Our field belongs to many and at the same time to none. We are so broad that at times we cannot find ‘our soul.’”

Indeed, in the course of the fieldwork carried out as part of Ergonomics – Real Design project we asked visitors to The Design Museum what Ergonomics meant to them. The resounding feedback was that most considered it ‘something to do with chairs’. Interestingly, Ergonomists seem to similarly struggle to define the scope of what it is that they do, with none that we interviewed in another batch of fieldwork seemingly able to come up with a consistent definition of where the focus of their discipline lies exactly – They were unanimous however, in agreeing that it was a lot broader than simply thinking about seating configurations.

Now none of this is an attempt to undermine any of the excellent work done by many thus far to define either of the disciplines of Service Design or Ergonomics, indeed I am grateful to all who have (particularly Nick) for stimulating this discussion.

Nor am I arguing exclusively for either heterogenuity or homogeneity in terms of how you foster growth of your profession. This fascinating if not slightly obscure summary does a good job of listing some of the respective merits of each approach in terms of how they relate to developing world micro-credit schemes and community building.

What this list alludes to and Nick’s post also suggests is that if you want to foster creativity and also strong leadership (and thus a clear division between market leaders and the rest of the competition) - hetrogenuity is perhaps a better game to play. If however, you want to foster a greater sense of identity and community perhaps a more homogenous strategy is preferable.

Are you an ergonomist or service designer or simply someone who struggles to explain to people what exactly it is you do? Does your business struggle to put a value on the full range of services and expertise you can offer your clients? What do you think is the best approach for motivating your workforce and engaging meaningfully with your customers?

Is it better to increase the likelihood of people becoming aware of your work by keeping the definition broad (see this) or do you think it’s better to be more specific and goal centred in order to help make your subject relevant to other people (like this)?

Tags: Awareness, Design Research, Human Centred Design, Intrinsic Awareness, Motivation, Motivational Design, Public Engagement, Relevance, Service Design, the difference between novice and expert behaviour, User Perceptions
Posted in Motivational Design, Public Engagement | View Comments

Awareness – Getting Caught Speeding

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

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).

Tags: ARCS Model, Awareness, Design Research, Human Centred Design, Motivation, Motivational Design, Relevance, Social Nudge
Posted in ARCS Model, Awareness, Relevance | View Comments

Awareness – AEG Decibel Meter

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

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.

Tags: Advertising, ARCS Model, Awareness, Data, Design Research, Human Centred Design, Information, Motivation, Motivational Design, Relevance
Posted in ARCS Model, Awareness, Motivational Design, Relevance | View Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Awareness’

Interview with Dan Pink on Motivation

Motivational Design Framework v.0.1

Design for Self-Service – A motivational psychology perspective

An Attempt to Find the Soul of Ergonomics

Hetero or Homo – What’s The Engagement Strategy?

Awareness – AEG Decibel Meter

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