Coming into the class, I had a fair amount of design experience in building applications to fit users’ needs based on their pain points. I was familiar with the typical design process of need-finding and the empathy framework; however, I had never designed for change in user behaviour. CS247B provided a holistic and comprehensive overview of the design techniques based on human cognition. I enjoyed taking this class because it offered an opportunity for me to learn more about myself as a user.
Initially, I wanted to focus on how to nudge users to change how they interact with their personal devices e.g. mobile phones. While working in the AR space, one of the biggest challenges of mobile AR applications was that users found the experience of looking at the world via their mobile screen uncomfortable and often awkward. Hence, I wanted to know how to nudge users to be more comfortable with the AR interaction. However, it was obvious at the start of the quarter that we were designing for behavioural changes centred on the user and not the app/system itself.
During the brainstorming phase, our team discussed various different kinds of behaviours that we wanted ourselves to change, and the common problem we shared was the addiction to short-form content. We thought this was necessary and relevant as Tiktok and Instagram have come to dominate the digital-content market, and Youtube has adopted the short-form content view as one of their main features. During the first half of the quarter, I learned much about developing personas and honing in on who we were designing for. This process was extremely important for us as all our team members understood the problem space. Still, there were many instances of miscommunication about exactly what intervention method would work better than the other. It was hard to reason about the pros and cons without having a fixated persona we could always refer back to. I will definitely be incorporating personas again in my future design processes.
Another assignment that I enjoyed was the two “Measuring Me” activities we conducted at the start of the quarter. Although it was probably the assignment that took the least effort/time to complete, the collected data offered insights and patterns I had not noticed before.
Another aspect of the class that I very much enjoyed was the weekly reading assignments. My favourite reading was “Tiny Prompts”; the concise article demonstrated different forms of nudges/motivation. Before reading the article I was under the impression that it was the designer’s role to bombard the users to a point they change their behaviour. However, after reading the article it became crystal clear that the indirect approach and creating low-level relationships between the user and the intended action create long-lasting results. During the design phase, we were very careful not to go ham over the notification and instead only prompted the user when it was absolutely necessary.
In terms of the teamwork we did during class, I especially enjoyed the different brainstorming methods Christina introduced. I had approached the problem with a solution already in mind, and during week 4 I had difficulty with design fixation. It was not until I received the mid-quarter feedback form when one of the teammates mentioned that I need not be fixated on a single solution, that I realized that I needed to explore broader solutions. Although some methods seemed redundant and a waste of time, the methods never failed to provide a new insight our team had glossed over. I still remember how our team came up with the idea of intervening via a change in location. One of the team members had mentioned requiring the user to “meet a friend” to unlock their time limit. From this idea, we went back and looked at why this would work and discovered that the users had a habit of scrolling for an extensive period of time in private, indoor spaces. Building from this, we came up with the idea that a time limit should only be applied in certain locations/zones and invented the concept of block zones!
After taking this class, I hope to apply the design principles and methods we learnt on the future projects I take on. I will be sure to be the one on the team to constantly remind the rest of the importance of incorporating ethical discussions. I have learnt a lot from this class, and 247B has only increased my passion for product design. I leave this class with a diverse range of design tools and an ethical framework mindset; Thank you for the wonderful experience!
