Before this class, I thought this
Before this class, I had a very limited view on what it meant to change behavior. I used to think of behavior change as entirely intrinsically motivated and that it was something you had to do completely independently. I was skeptical of apps that claimed to help people work on habit building.
I also was very much invested in the idea of “move fast break things.” Prior to Stanford I had no exposure to entrepreneurship or startups. I found being out here in Silicon Valley that the idea of quickly working and making impactful products to be very attractive. I enjoyed my HCI classes where we could quickly iterate and create apps designed to solve pressing problems.
I did this work with these experience…
What did you love?
My favorite part about this class was how integrated the discussion of ethics was at every step of the process. I felt in previous classes that the ethical side to developing products was usually mentioned as an add on or just something to “consider.” I think in previous classes I became so used to working towards a tangible solution that met “all the requirements” that had a sense of completion. However, oftentimes I felt I left the ethics discussions feeling more confused and challenged. It was really uncomfortable at first experiencing this confusion but as the quarter progressed I found that experiencing feeling uncomfortable or uncertain in these class discussions prompted me to ask more challenging questions not only about our project/idea but what my goals should be as an engineer entering the tech world upon graduation.
What tools and methods do you think you’ll use again? What tools and methods didn’t feel like the right fit?
The most helpful lesson for me was the drawing lesson from Deb Aoki. I have always had a mental barrier of feeling like I am such a poor drawer that I always felt it hindered me when trying to quickly brainstorm or come up with ideas. Aoki’s lesson was great in that it gave me very basic tools for feeling more empowered to express my ideas pictorially. I want to continue to take this skill with me too as I enter the tech industry. I will be in an engineering role but will be working closely with PMs and designers and want to be able to contribute on the design side of product development as well.
While I felt as though I grew my confidence in my ability to draw out my ideas quickly, I felt I consistently struggled with the sketchnotes. I found it much easier to come up with original ideas and convey those ideas through drawing them than taking someone else’s ideas and drawing them out myself. I found I kept following a rigid structure with my sketchnotes as I felt I was trying to exactly lay out what a particular article was saying whereas when we were storyboarding or ideating I felt I could be more creative and free expressing my ideas.
Ethical considerations. You don’t have to answer all, but consider these from a more personal perspective than in the group writeup.
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- Nudging and Manipulation (week 3): What mechanisms does your project use to change behavior? What makes them acceptable nudges? Are there users for whom or use-cases of your project for which your mechanisms might become manipulative and why?
Our project utilizes standard push notifications to remind users to respond to a daily creative prompt, and also sends daily reminders for them to engage with others in the creativity community that they form on our app. While this has not been fully implemented in our prototype, in our intervention study we tried to get user input around what sort of prompts they are interested in and around what times of the day would be helpful for them to receive these prompts. We did this as a way to give the users agency over the frequency of notifications and the types of prompts they get.
Our nudges might be manipulative for some users who might prefer to do creative work independently. Our nudges and system in general is designed around people to be creative socially and submit evidence of their creative work in a chat space on our app. However, maybe someone who is looking to be more creative but not necessarily engage with others could find the reminders to either respond to others work or being notified of feedback on their work to feel social pressure to respond or engage in ways they do not really want to. We discussed this in our presentation but potential next steps for our app would be to find a way to help people who may not necessarily want to be creative in a group setting explore their own creativity independently.
Now I think this (ways your thinking has evolved.)
I am more optimistic about the ability to create apps that can introduce positive behavior change, but also recognize more so how difficult and challenging it is to actually change behavior. But I think the greatest way I have changed in my thinking is now not being fully invested in the idea of “move fast break things” from an ethical perspective. The many ethics conversations we had was a wake up call for me think beyond just making a “successful” product. While I come out of this class with more questions rather than answers about massive ethical considerations not only facing behavior change but the tech world in general, I am now more invested in taking a more methodical and caring approach to designing and releasing products that have the ability to greatly impact people’s lives.
Next time when faced with a similar situation I will…?
Ask more questions as opposed to just jumping to solutions. I think what this class and HCI classes at Stanford have taught me in general is to spend more time really trying to sit in and understand a problem from multiple angles. I want to be constantly questioning both the efficacy and ethics of a problem I am working on.
