Route · Public Design Atlas
Change a behavior
To design something that helps people do what they already want to do.
Understand why it happens
What it takes for someone to act.
COM-B model
A model according to which any behavior needs three things at once: capability, opportunity and motivation.
How it’s used
How it works
- Choose a specific behavior and ask what prevents it.
- Review each component: capability, opportunity and motivation.
- The intervention targets what is really missing.
- Avoid
- Responding to everything with motivation campaigns when what is missing is capability or opportunity.
Fogg Behavior Model
A behavior happens when, at the same moment, there is enough motivation, the person is able to do it and something reminds them.
How it’s used
How it works
- Motivation and ability offset each other: easy things require less desire.
- If the combination is enough, the behavior becomes possible.
- A prompt is needed at that moment for it to happen.
- Avoid
- Flooding with prompts someone who can't or doesn't want to do it: it only causes annoyance.
System 1 and System 2
A way of describing two modes of thinking: one fast, automatic, and intuitive, and the other slow, deliberate, and effortful.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- System 1 answers instantly with what seems obvious.
- System 2 could check it, but that takes effort and it often does not kick in.
- If nothing slows us down, we accept the first answer.
- Avoid
- Taking advantage of haste to get people to accept something they would reject if they were calm.
Choose the mechanism
Which small lever changes the decision.
Default effect
We tend to stick with the option that comes chosen in advance, even when changing it takes very little effort.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- Changing an option takes a little effort, and we often don't make it.
- The preselected option looks like a recommendation from whoever designed the form.
- Leaving it as it is feels safer, because you don't have to justify the change.
- Avoid
- Leaving subscriptions, insurance or permissions the person hasn't asked for preselected.
Framing effect
The same information, told in a different way, for example as a gain or as a loss, leads us to decide differently.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- We don’t evaluate data in the abstract, but as they are presented to us.
- Talking about gains makes us cautious; talking about losses, risk-seeking.
- We rarely translate one frame into the other to check that they say the same thing.
- Avoid
- Choosing the frightening or reassuring frame to push a decision.
A nudge is a change in how options are presented that makes a behavior more likely, without banning anything or changing incentives.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- Every choice is presented in some way. There is no neutral design.
- We tend to follow the easiest path, like leaving what comes preselected.
- Designing that path changes what is chosen without removing any option.
- Avoid
- Using design to push toward what suits the company rather than the person.
Loss aversion
A loss affects us more than a gain of the same size, so we tend to avoid losing even if it means giving up a bigger gain.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- We measure changes relative to what we already have, not the total amount.
- Dropping below that point is felt more than rising by the same amount.
- That’s why we avoid risks even when they suit us, and struggle to let go of what is already ours.
- Avoid
- Fake countdowns and offers that claim to expire and don’t.
Design the intervention
Make it easy, attractive, social, and timely.
EAST framework
A Behavioural Insights Team framework that sums up how to encourage a behavior: make it easy, attractive, social and timely.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose the behavior you want to encourage, specifically.
- Go through the four letters: remove effort, catch attention, show what others do and pick the moment.
- Run an experiment to see which version really works.
- Avoid
- Using social pressure with false or exaggerated data.
Take care of the ethics
Help without manipulating.
Interface designs that lead people to do something they didn't want to, like buying, subscribing or giving up data, by exploiting how we decide.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- They exploit mental shortcuts such as haste, inertia or social pressure.
- They hide or make costlier the option that best serves the person.
- They work, which is why they have spread so widely.
- Avoid
- Hiding cancellation, preselecting extras or using guilt-tripping wording.