Final Class Reflection

Before this class, I thought this…

Before this class, I thought behavior change was mostly a matter of discipline and willpower. I believed that people who couldn’t change their habits simply lacked the determination or commitment necessary to follow through. My understanding was linear and simplistic: if you want to change, you just need to try harder.

I did this work with these experiences…

What I loved

The most enjoyable part of the process for me was the needfinding and baseline study. Drawing insights from people’s interview responses was genuinely engaging, and I found myself looking for deeper meanings behind their everyday behaviors. It was fascinating to be so observant and scrutinizing about routine actions people took, analyzing their incentives and inner motivations.

Some interesting insights that stood out from my team’s baseline study included:

• Realizing that people who spent a lot in social settings didn’t necessarily want to decrease their social spending because they felt it was worth it. This challenged my assumption that all “excessive” spending was viewed negatively by the spenders themselves.

• Recognizing the creative justifications people used for purchasing sweet treats, such as:
  • Claiming they were buying treats for friends but conveniently getting one for themselves in the process
  • Purchasing treats with the stated intention of saving them for later or tomorrow, but eating them the same day anyway
• Discovering that for many online shoppers, the joy of shopping was disconnected from the actual product being purchased. Some would buy items and immediately return them or even forget they had ordered them, yet this didn’t diminish the original thrill of the shopping experience itself.

What I didn’t enjoy

My least favorite part of the process was creating many of the graphs and diagrams, including the story maps and system paths. These steps often felt unnecessary and intuitive, and I didn’t feel they produced new insights that we ended up using in our final design. While I can see how these tools might be valuable for more complex processes like setting up a bank account or navigating investment options, for our app they seemed more like busywork than productive exercises.

What surprised me

I was surprised by our team dynamic. This project marked the first time in years that I’ve worked on a long-term project with people I didn’t know at all. Contrary to my expectations, it worked surprisingly well. In retrospect, not knowing each other probably made us more agreeable and willing to compromise. We communicated more respectfully than I might have with friends, where established dynamics could have complicated collaboration.

How this relates to other work at Stanford

Some of the readings, while occasionally repetitive, offered valuable concepts that I’ve applied in other contexts. The principles surrounding nudges, environmental triggers, and social accountability proved particularly transferable. For example, in my senior project class, my group developed an alarm app that allowed users to set alarms with friends and place wagers on whether they would wake up (verified using a step tracker). This directly incorporated the concepts of loss aversion and social accountability that we learned in this class.

Ethical considerations

Our project operated in an interesting space between actual consumption and creative satisfaction. A core principle for us was ensuring users didn’t end up purchasing anything through our browsing process, which led us to develop fictitious prompts and use unlinked or AI-generated images. However, an ethical concern remains in the edge cases where people might still be driven to buy products after using our app.

Another consideration was avoiding creating yet another platform for doomscrolling. We attempted to mitigate this by limiting users to one prompt per day, but this restriction raises questions about whether we’re also limiting usage for those who would benefit from additional board-making. This dilemma reflects a common challenge in products designed to help those with compulsive behaviors: how do you create a stepping stone without it becoming a gateway to other problematic behaviors? It’s similar to how Juul attempted to combat smoking by creating a less harmful alternative, yet inadvertently served as a gateway product for some users.

From a business perspective, I don’t see a clear path toward monetization unless the app becomes subscription-based. This raises an interesting ethical question: are people willing to pay a small fee to prevent themselves from shopping more? And if they are, does that create perverse incentives for us as developers?

Now I think this…

I now realize the significant impact of external influences on behavior change. Factors like your environment, subtle nudges, and triggers play crucial roles in shaping habits and actions. Behavior change isn’t simply about having enough willpower—it’s about designing systems and environments that make the desired behaviors easier and more natural.

I’ve come to understand that effective behavior change interventions often work by making subtle adjustments to the choice architecture rather than demanding radical shifts in discipline. Sometimes the most effective interventions are those that people barely notice or that aren’t that different from their existing habits.

Next time when faced with a similar situation I will…

Next time I approach a behavior change project, I will:

1. Focus more energy on thorough needfinding and baseline studies, as these yielded the most valuable insights in our process.

2. Be more selective about which design tools and frameworks to employ, choosing only those that genuinely enhance understanding rather than applying them all indiscriminately.

3. Approach team dynamics with openness, recognizing that working with new people can sometimes lead to more professional and effective collaboration.

4. Pay more attention to the environment and context in which behaviors occur, rather than focusing exclusively on the individual’s choices or actions.

5. Seek a balance between creating tools that help people achieve their goals while being mindful of potential dependency or misuse.

6. Look for opportunities to apply behavioral insights across different domains and projects, as I’ve found these principles to be widely applicable.

By approaching behavior change projects with this more nuanced understanding, I believe I’ll be able to create more effective, ethical, and sustainable solutions in the future.