The Youth Olympic Games is chiefly a celebration of the Olympic Values of Friendship, Respect and Excellence. In my new role as GB Youth Ambassador for the Games to held for the first time in Singapore this August, I’m really interested to know what you all think about the Olympics and what about it you personally do or do not value?
In chatting to some people in the design world recently I know that many people don’t see the relevance of the Olympics to them personally and admitted to not really understanding the relevance of Olympics to society at large. Do you share this feeling or does the Olympics mean a lot to you?
Really any answer or reflection short or long that you fancy giving would be incredibly welcome here, it will help me understand how best to support the Young Athletes I’ll be working with over the next few months explore their social and environmental responsibilities to you, as it will be you who they are representing at the Youth Olympic Games this summer.
As Young Ambassador for Great Britain what message would you like me to pass on to the British athletes and if you aren’t British what message would you like passed on to the Olympic community at large that might in turn influence how much you value the Olympic Games and its ideals? Let me know via the comments link below or via Twitter (@fergusbisset) – I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Simultaneous Translation Booths at the Chef de Mission Seminar, 25th March, Singapore - (c) SYOGOC 2010
As I mentioned in my last post, I have been fortunate over the past week to have been invited to Singapore to participate in a Seminar ahead of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games to be held there this August. I was invited in my role as Great Britain’s Youth Ambassador for the Games – it was a great experience and a chance to meet my colleagues in this role from 29 other countries from all over the globe. Some of the other Ambassadors from other nations have already recounted their thoughts and initial reactions from the trip elsewhere; Florian from Austria, Erin from the United States and Callum from Canada are all in agreement that this was a fantastic and memorable trip. It didn’t seem to matter where each of us came from or whether our backgrounds were as youth worker, designer or Olympic medalist, or whether we spoke English, Spanish, Khmer or Mandarin. The power of the activities and the spirit and idealism that had brought us to Singapore and that the Olympic Games provides, ensured that it did not take long for us to build a strong understanding and friendship with each other.
It was also a great chance to understand more about the host nation of Singapore and in the company of 60 local ‘Youth Champions’ last week we were immersed in the activities and rich culture that await the athletes and visitors to the Youth Olympic Games in August. The cultural diversity of Singapore itself makes it an ideal venue for such an ambitious venture in cross-cultural understanding and expression.
Speaking with president of the IOC Jacques Rogge, 24th March 2010
The Culture and Education Programme (CEP) is a new initiative, the brain child of current International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to, in his own words, “reinvent the Olympics.” This sounds dramatic but in effect this is an inspired move on the part of the IOC to attempt to reconnect the modern day Olympic Games with its founding vision of the Olympics as a celebration of not just sporting achievement but also of international cultural, social and educational activities. Over the next few months I will elaborating and promoting these cultural and educational activities to and on behalf of the young athlete members of Team GB, through this blog and a number of other initiatives both online and offline in the build up to the Games. It is an exciting and challenging prospect – helping communicate the hundred and sixteen year old Olympic values and developing and supporting activities that encourage others to embody the values and their idealism.
YOG CEP Seminar, Singapore, March 2010 (c) SYOGOC 2010
I understand that it would be easy to write off this role and its responsibilities as too idealistic and unrepresentative, either of the wider challenges facing the world today or on account of the Olympics potentially seeming like the frivolous entertainment of a privileged, able bodied few. However, one of the most striking experiences of many last week was attending the Chief de Mission Seminar, which was attended by representatives of 205 National Olympic Committees. My guess is that you probably need to visit the UN to have another chance to sit in a room with that many other nationalities – the power and potential of sport uniting nations in pursuit of common goals and ideals, communicating in only two languages (English and French) is an awe inspiring phenomenon and it was a privilege to be part of it.
The good news is, that with the addition of a Cultural and Educational Programme to the Youth Olympics this summer – the opportunities for broader expression and for creating greater global understanding, collaboration and participation, is not limited to sport nor simply to dry meetings and discussions. The Youth Olympic Games will open up the Olympic movement to the full range of human capability, expression and communication and in turn provide inspiration and opportunities for millions of people both young and old to participate in and appreciate something ‘youthful’, fresh and exciting.
I look forward to sharing my experiences with you. Check back for more updates on my journey as Great Britain’s Young Ambassador and in the meantime for a bit of taster of the activities of last week check out this video from the Singapore Youth Games Organising Committee – my thanks to everyone who made this week so memorable and who are working so hard to make the Singapore Youth Olympic Games a fantastic success.
What do you think – can the Olympics, enable better communication and understanding between nations and promote a more peaceful world?
As all of us will most likely now be aware the Winter Olympic Games have started in Vancouver Canada. It’s now day four of the games and that means the first day of cross-country skiing events. These events are obviously close to my heart as something of a cross-country ski enthusiast and it is great to know that for the first time in 16 years Great Britain will have representatives in these events. Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young will be competing in the Mens 15km freestyle event whilst Fiona Hughes will compete in the Ladies 10km. A shout out also to Ireland’s PJ Barron who will be racing as well in this afternoon’s events and trains with the rest of the British team.
Andrew Young and Andrew Musgrave Ahead of the Olympics (photo credit: PJ Barron)
This is a fantastic achievement not just for the three individuals in question but for all the coaching team who have helped get them there over the past ten years, British Nordic Development Squad coaches Roy Young, Anghared Evans, Ekaterina Rachel, Keith Spencer, Marek Pasterny, Pete Gurney, Roger Homyer and Steve Boyd and Al Dargie as well as club coaches at a number of local clubs across the UK such as the Cairngorm Biathlon and Nordic Ski Club and Huntly Nordic Ski Club.
It is also testament to the competitiveness of the rest of the squad that these three individuals have been pushed to this level of performance. It is perhaps overlooked when the Olympics comes around and the focus is on the top three places, just how much work goes into preparing, training, resting and equipping all the athletes in the field, not just to get them to the start line today but every day over the past four years since the last games or longer. There has also been a huge amount of effort and commitment from a significant number of athletes who didn’t make it this year and whom having missed out this time are already planning the next four years to take them to Soichi 2014, not to mention all the British Championships, World Junior Championships, World Cup and World Championship campaigns in the interim.
Indeed, four years ago if you had asked me what my central ambition in life was, it was to be on the start line alongside these guys, I gave it my best shot but its a hundred times harder than those guys out there will make it look today. That is a credit not only to them but their coaches, families and supporters no matter the results today. Indeed, it is so great from a Motivational perspective to see all of them and Andrew Musgrave in particular, in their interviews for the BBC, talk about how these Games are about experience and providing performance benchmarks for future years performance. As anybody who has read up on Motivational Theory or competed in elite level sport will know, successful performance and sustaining motivated behaviour comes as a result of focusing on your own (intrinsic) performance, not simply measuring it based on extrinsic rewards such as medals, money or praise.
Whilst it is these three young skiers that will represent all of us in Great Britain in the races this evening. I believe that what they and all their competitors from all the other nations have achieved and will continue to achieve represents a way of thinking and a behaviour that all of us can benefit from considering:
How we work together in teams or families to achieve our shared objectives – how do we support, share and inspire ourselves and those around to achieve our personal and shared aims, whatever those aims might be.
How we reflect, think and introspect upon our own performance – how does it fit with our personal values and aims and how does it compare with those around us – is our day to day behaviour going to take us where we want to be in four to five years time?
Do we enjoy our day to day experiences and the challenges and pleasures they throw up enough for our long terms aims to be worthwhile? We’re all aware of the phrase “Life’s too short…” How do we manage and regulate our own day to day performances and how we interact with the world around us to ensure we are fulfilling our potential and contributing as much as possible to those around us and our dreams and ambition?
Where do you want to be in four years time? And for the designers and behavioural change professionals amongst us, how do we design products, systems and services that support this level of experience, thought and performance? What else can we learn from the Olympics and Olympians in terms of how to energise and support human motivation and performance?
Good luck to Andrew, Andrew and Fi as well as to all of the rest of us!
I am currently writing a short chapter for the forthcoming Service Design textbook This is Service Design Thinking. In the spirit of co-creation and participatory design which this publication is attempting to embody I would be very interested to hear what you think about my introduction and the scope of the chapter I am writing. I would really welcome your feedback and suggestions. Presently, it reads as follows:
Motivation has been described as the “energisation and direction of human behaviour” (Reeve, 2005). A fundamental concept in the understanding, regulation and support of human behaviour, Motivation has been debated and discussed for time immemorial. From Confucian and Sanskrit philosophy in the East to that of the Greek political philosophers and Christian biblical scholars in the West: The symbiotic relationship of the individual and their environment and attempts to understand the governing principles of this relationship have been one of the most central questions to ‘energise and direct’ humanity’s thoughts, beliefs and creativity. Defining not only the social structures of the societies in which we live but the political, educational and creative philosophies that govern and sustain them.
Mook (1987) provides a fuller account of the historical evolution of Motivation and in turn the recursive nature of Motivation within society. History builds a case for how significantly a society or community’s conception of ‘motivation’ underpins its philosophical and political stance and behaviour. For example Pre-Enlightenment era Europe was governed by the Christian church and thus the values of the church transcended national boundary, in much the same way that for example modern day Islam and Judaism often transcends or paradoxically in the case of countries such as Iran and Israel respectively, epitomises national or political identity.
There is little escaping the fact that our motivations or how we explain and conceptualise them digs deeper into our own psyche and that of our societies than very often as designers we are prepared or entitled to look. Furthermore, if Design Thinking and Service Design hold the key to solving larger more complex social problems as (Burns, Cottam, Vanstone, & Winhall, 2006),Brown (2009), Martin (2009), Loevlie (2009) and Miller and Rudnick (2009) have claimed, do we need to start being more capable and comfortable at asking those questions and visualising and conceptualising the responses?
This chapter seeks to explore as succinctly as 8000 characters allows what modern day psychology and its literature can contribute to overcoming these sometimes uncomfortable ethical, political and social conceptualisations and how, in addition to existing and established Service Design tools and processes, it might be able to support us ‘design thinkers’ as we seek to ‘energise and direct’ human behaviour through the design and creation of innovative products, systems and services.
Thank you all in anticipation of your help and really looking forward to hearing from you, either via Twitter or via the comments form below:
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 support of his discussion of how managers might support employee Motivation, Julian leverages the same Self Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985, 2000, 2004) that has formed the basis of my own research. His coverage of the Material, Social and Personal drivers of Motivation need little further coverage as I’ve referred to them on my blog and associated discussions using Deci and Ryan’s original terms of Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence. Julian suggests that managers should utilise these three aspects of human psychological capability to help turn ‘extrinsically regulated‘ organisational objectives into ‘identified‘ personal motives of employees. In otherwords, managers should use the prospects of material, social and personal rewards to encourage employees to take ownership of organisational objectives and become more personally intrinsically rewarding. I would also supplement this with Valerand’s, (2003) definition that motivation occurs on “global, contextual and situational” levels of recursion.
As I’ve mentioned in the discussion on Wenovski a great example of an organisation doing this is Zappos, an American online retailer, that uses it’s employees to amongst other things model the clothes they sell. Specifically this example is appealing to an employee’s underlying Relatedness and Competence ‘needs’ and allowing them to fulfill those ‘needs’ on behalf of the organisation, which in turn benefits the organisation’s own Relatedness and Competence objectives, by providing customers with a familiar, down to earth and empathetic marketing touch point. Literally in this case the employee is embodying the organisation. This, if successful, and it is proving very successful for Zappos, will in the long term also enhance the organisations global Autonomy by boosting sales (the material outcome) as well as it’s social outcome (what customers think) and its personal, or personnel outcome by enhancing its relationship with its employees.
Motivational Framework v0.1 cc Fergus Bisset
As one of the commenters on Unstructure Marc Buyens said, “these are not new concepts”, but I think the difference is that re-conceptualising these as motivational constructs or regulatory mechanisms can have quite a powerful effect on the way an organisation manages them. The above diagram indicates another few ways from the literature of conceptualising both how and why to target ‘management interventions’. For example, these help determine at what stage you are energising as opposed to directing employee/customer behaviour and whether or not you are doing so to instil awareness of issues or to reaffirm employee confidence or satisfaction.
Indeed, motivation is all around us, it is the root of our every behaviour and that’s a critical point I’d like to bring to this conversation, motivation whether positive or negative (demotivation) will occur whether you want it to or not. Within your organisation, your staff and colleagues, and yourself. Deci and Ryan’s theory is an organismic one, that is, it perceives that we as humans are naturally predisposed to grow and organically adapt to our environment, seeking out new challenges, responsibilities and recognition in order to fulfil these underlying psychological needs. The question to managers is perhaps best asked, not might you support motivation, but rather how are you currently regulating motivation within your organisation? How are you directing or maintaining the energisation of the behaviour in your organisation?
A very innovative approach to this I discovered yesterday, came via the Swedish TV Licensing Authority with their Tack (Thank You) campaign. Allowing individuals who upon paying their tv licences to submit a picture of themselves and be integrated to a well highly produced and aspirational “thank you” video. Actually, anyone can have a go, which does kind of undermine the point a little, but its powerful stuff – underlining the point that for managers the best way to motivate your employees is to integrate them into the middle of the organisation and allow them to take ownership and participate in the critical issues of the organisation and become an evangelist for them.
From a Self Determination perspective at least, every employee has those Personal ‘Material, Social and Competence ‘Needs” Julian mentions, fulfilment of these results in happiness for the individual. However, because of the nested and recursive nature of self determined behaviour and societies, organisations also have ‘Material, Social and Competence‘ ‘Needs’. The obvious question for managers then is how are you facilitating the fulfilment of both of these first order (happiness) and second order ‘needs’ (success) and in doing so creating a motivated, energised and purposeful organisation? As I shared on Twitter yesterday:
“Success is getting what you want (contextual/global – extrinsic). Happiness is wanting what you get (situational – intrinsic).”
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’.
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?
Thanks to Andy Polaine for sharing this tremendous insight in response to my post yesterday. It’s fair to say that those students studying Service Design at Luzern are in great hands.
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.
As I have reported elsewhere I have never truly been comfortable with the concept of User Needs, as a justification or hypothesis for why any designer should be designing something. I get really uncomfortable when otherwise perfectly valid design decisions get glossed with the immeasurable concept of “user need fulfilment”. I get annoyed when otherwise perfectly unjustified design decisions get accepted on account of ‘user need fulfilment’.
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?
