Before this class, I thought
Among all of the 247’s, I was really interested in taking behavior just through knowing how much our behavior can be driven by the digital technologies that we use every day, whether the behaviors were harmful or beneficial. Before this class, I thought that we were designing to improve habits and behaviors, and I felt like that was a manageable and easy task to do, but after completing this class, I quickly learned that there are so many layers and explanations to explain what design is within this field. Through different frameworks and experiments, it always comes back to how complicated yet interesting humans and human behavior are, in which it was fun being able to study and come up with theories about how we work.
I did this work with these experiences
Our group focused a lot on the social aspect of behavior, targeting texting and why students delay their text messages. It was fun, and I enjoyed conducting the baseline and intervention interviews, since we got to directly influence people’s day-to-day habits that they didn’t even think about. I remember calling my participant late at night to remind him to text all his friends back, and I found it most exciting that the call actually made him change his behavior for the night, stopping his work and responding to messages. Seeing that influence alone made me think about the greater world of behavioral design. That moment made behavioral design feel much more real to me, and it pushed me to think more critically about the role designers play in shaping everyday behavior.
Primarily focused on a UX design career, I have explored how little to large design decisions, from tiny buttons to entire user flows, have the ability to create massive waves of change. We have so much influence on how everyday people proceed with their everyday lives through the technologies that we control, and in this position of power and honor, I really reflect on what it means to be a designer or even to think through design in this current time.
Ethical Considerations
Interface Design & Design Justice
While many of the current products, like Nudgi, are designed for target users and very specific demographics, I think about all of the people disregarded from these choices. The ethics of who exactly gets a say and gets to be a part of these influential designs play a huge role in access, and even these notions of harm and benefit. Who really gets to benefit from behavioral design? While some benefit, who gets harmed?
Nudging and Manipulation
Thinking about that influence also raised deeper ethical questions about how designers should intervene in people’s behavior. Continuing on ethical considerations, our app relies heavily on nudging and manipulation of behavior, with our app literally named Nudgi. Our project uses social networks to change behavior by introducing social accountability into texting. I find these nudges acceptable because they operate on how comfortable people are with their close friends, where many of our testers said they would only really nudge their close friends rather than weak-tied friends. However, something that questions ethicality is whether or not people are comfortable being nudged. We rely on social embarrassment as an underlying idea of “social accountability.” When people choose or unconsciously ignore a text, they are made more visible and are more revealed, which means our app touches on people’s comfort, private life, and interferes with their day-to-day experiences, where there is almost a negative connotation with response delays. This walks a fine line within their well-being between praise and shame, as not everyone really wants to be nudged and have their names be shown to people when they don’t respond.
Now I think
Now, I think a lot about how deep behavior is. There are so many layers that come with not only behavior, but with the ethics of how we intervene. As designers, there are so many considerations that need to be taken into account, with nudging, privacy, interface design, design justice, and well-being. I now think much more carefully about how behavioral interventions are designed, because even small design choices can influence how people act in their everyday lives. What once felt like a simple task of improving habits now feels much more complex, where every design decision carries responsibility.
Next time, when faces with a similar situation, I will
Next time when faced with a similar situation, I will think more critically about the ethical implications of the behavioral interventions I design. Instead of only asking whether something successfully changes behavior, I will also think about whether it should change behavior, who benefits from that change, and who might feel pressured or excluded by it. I would also want to explore ways to give users more agency and choice in how these nudges appear in their lives, so that the design supports behavior change without feeling manipulative.
