In the Fall, I decided to take CS 147 because I had heard great things from my peers. As a Symbolic Systems major, I had little exposure to upper-level computer science classes, and found myself most drawn to the HCI curriculum. While 147 was an incredibly intensive course, I learned so much about design principles that I wanted to build upon in subsequent classes. The course offering of Design for Behavior Change excited me, as my concentration is in Decision-Making and Rationality, which explores how and why people make decisions. This class seemed like a wonderful way to approach this topic from a design and HCI perspective.
One of the most memorable lessons was applying Cialdini’s Principles of Influence to design. I had previously learned about this concept in PSYCH 70: Social Psychology, and was excited to revisit the topic. I really appreciated the angle that Krishnan and the teaching team took to applying these lessons to product design. Specifically, the ideas of reciprocation, liking, and scarcity were clearly demonstrated in real-world examples from online shopping websites and other applications. Our team, Naked Mole Rats, ended up leveraging many of these principles in our project, which aimed to build an app that encouraged news reading using social cues.
Another concept I really enjoyed learning about was Tiny Prompts. Before taking this course, I thought people found intrinsic motivation to act on their habits. This led to a fixed, binary mindset regarding one’s ability to build a habit. However, after learning about the importance of ability and motivation, and the effectiveness of action prompts, I developed a growth mindset surrounding habit formation. I realized that habits could be nurtured through one’s environment, and an inability to form habits was not due to a lack of willpower, but rather reflected the context of the habit formation.
As an aspiring investor, I hope to leverage both my psychology and computer science background when evaluating potential products and companies, so I thought this course would help in this way, too. I think this class helped me immensely to achieve this goal. When I evaluate new applications/products, or even new features on existing applications that I use, I feel far more confident in being able to evaluate these products from a design perspective. For example, I’ve realized how important getting to know your user is through need finding interviews, assumption tests, and even diary studies. When a product really aims to get to the heart of a users’ problems instead of offering a band-aid solution, I feel like I am able to recognize it more effectively from the learnings in this class.
Lastly, I think the concepts of ethics as it pertains to design are highly relevant in today’s environment, as the most prevalent social media apps are accused of manipulating their users. I think ethically designed products that seek to change behavior would change it for the “better.” But what does “better” mean exactly? Based on the learnings of the course, there is a slippery slope, where more of a behavior does not always mean better. In other words, there can be too much of a good thing. For example, playing a video game or watching TikTok for 30 minutes can be a source of happiness and relaxation. However, engaging in this activity for more than that amount of time can start to have diminishing returns. While this may go against the financial interests of a company, I believe it is in their long-term interests to maintain user health.
Ultimately, I found this class to be very insightful and a great addition to CS 147! I’d highly recommend it.
