The Past
Behavior change is such a strange concept, isn’t it? It’s one of those polarizing ideas, something that half of the people think you can do, while the other half don’t believe it is truly possible. I’ve always been an optimist, so I fall into the former group – I did (and I do) believe people can change their behavior…
…but only if they really want to.
I’ve done a great deal of reflection over the past few years. My own behavior has changed so much, I often wonder which version of myself I will continue to be going forward: (A) the person from high school that tried very hard to do everything right, or (B) the person who got a lot of freedom all at once, and it went to their head a little, so they loosened up too much.
I didn’t use to think about behavior when I was person (A). Behavior was just something that happened, that wasn’t necessarily controllable. Behavior was when you refused to practice piano (even if you had a lesson the next day and you knew your teacher would not be happy with your lack of progress). Behavior was whining about not being allowed to get a phone when “all your friends had one”. It was a mindset that grades are currency, and A’s are gold; anything less than, you’re not worth as much.
When I was person (B), behavior was deciding that maybe some points on a Pset could be sacrificed to go to a social event (cuz you only live once). Behavior was feeling like I couldn’t bring home and school life together in one place – it felt too messy. It was disregard for the impact of new habits being formed that would lead to things I couldn’t understand until later.
Behavior didn’t feel like a choice, it was a result.
The Work
Through this class, I went through different interpretations of behavior: behavior as habit-forming, behavior as a product of ease and motivation, behavior as a dynamic process, behavior as a journey.
Doing sketchnotes every week in itself was a new behavior for me – while I’m not sure that they helped me with material retention more than regular notes, I found them to be a creative space where I could set and surpass my own expectations. I trained myself to think visually, to see patterns and themes, to experiment with layout and artistic hierarchy; I circled back to a time when I used to draw for fun. I built a habit through learning about habits.
Learning about behavior was one thing, though. Designing – that was another.
Diary studies were a new prospect, and in theory, they made sense. Practically, they were a whole different beast. It’s hard to tell when responses from interviewees and study participants are genuine and when they’re obligatory. Of course, I dream of a perfect world scenario where everyone on both sides of the study cares intrinsically for a solid outcome of a study (like I said, I’m an optimist). In reality, that might very rarely happen, and I’m endeavoring to be okay with that, and just take what I can get.
The intervention study was one of the most challenging aspects of the class, for these reasons. It’s hard to get people to care about a problem, when you’re not sure that you’re getting them to care in a way that makes sense to them. We started with: how do we get students to stop eating at night? This just wouldn’t fly; they don’t want to stop as long as there is food available and “free” money (meal plan dollars) to spend. So, we switched: how do we get students to eat at night in a healthy way? My group hit some roadblocks with our project here as well: late-night eating behaviors of college students on a campus that offers no facilities to be healthy while engaging in this behavior. As such, whether students want to change or not becomes somewhat irrelevant – how can we know they want to change when the resources aren’t available? It became clearer and clearer just how strange this Stanford situation is; students can’t get a salad at night if they want one, but they have to eat burgers and fries? There’s more digging to be done there, for sure…
Do I wish we’d chosen a different behavior to focus on? Strangely enough, no – I don’t. I think this exploration created a new avenue for campus-wide reflection, and thinking about how universities structure their environments to create behaviors in students. Do they think about those things, and subsequently, do they think about how the food they’re serving at night could be negatively impacting the health of their students? Have they asked students what they want?
How much do universities build their brand based on how students perceive them? That’s definitely something I’ll take away from this, and maybe look into exploring in the future.
The Why
I believe that our product is ethically centered in Value Sensitive Design, and can be easily expanded to meet Inclusive Design and Universal Design with small changes, and aligns more closely with the Objective Lists Theory of well-being. We promote a non-linear mindset of growth and progress, something that is becoming increasingly popular and necessary. Improvement is not a straight trajectory upwards – we understand that learning to build a new habit (such as transforming an unhealthy late-night diet into a healthy one) requires patience and perseverance, and can suffer from something like a streak or calorie counter. Our target audience aimed to use food for supporting themselves academically – that’s where the achievement comes from, and also where the user’s focus should be directed towards. One slip does not equal failure, it might just mean struggle or vulnerability. That’s OK. That’s why we let our users define what success looks like for them, and we hope for them to be healthy while achieving their other goals.
In this way, we’re not trying to manipulate them into consuming food they don’t want to, or feeling like they need to meet an objective standard of perfection. We show them how their choices stack up in and against their favor, and give them encouragement to choose better next time. The reward system we implemented is simple: if you eat healthy, you get a song selected based on your feedback that is added to your Growth Playlist. You see your progress based on the songs you received, and on the days you just can’t keep up, the loss is minimal (no song). There are no harsh restrictions, no put-downs, just reminders of “I’ll do better tomorrow”, which is the real driver of change. You always need to know you have a tomorrow, and our app supports and inspires that belief.
The Present
Seeing the impression our work created on Stanford students who interacted with our prototype, I believe that there is a way to make change happen, for people who are willing to accept those changes. Behavior is both a cause and an effect – it makes people do things, and it reinforces or dissuades those actions. I can’t rely on my surroundings to make changes for me; I need to be the facilitator of those changes by recognizing what I want to alter and setting up my environment to support me. Like I said, behavior change is tricky. There are so many components to making one environment conducive to a habit: time, mood, accessibility, enjoyment, social encouragement, the list goes on. There’s also many ways for it to go wrong. The trick is to understand the user: they are the foundation of the change.
The Future
Like I said before, I’ve been trying to figure out which behaviors to keep, which to change, and which to get rid of. I’ve been thinking about who I should be in the future. I’ve wanted to return to person (A), to want to do well and to find purpose in the work, but I wonder if the person I should be looking for is (AB) – someone who finds freedom in their work.
I think I’m getting acquainted with that person now, and they’re teaching me to enjoy what I do. I’m finding techniques to make work accessible and enjoyable, and discovering ways that I can see the purpose in my work and the benefits of overcoming challenges now. While I’ve been learning to design behavior change for others, my own behaviors have been changing. I can be more assertive, set boundaries, work with others, stand on my own when things don’t work out. Most importantly, I can believe that there is a tomorrow, and that change can happen anytime, anywhere. The main ingredient is me, and I’m always here…
