Before this class, I thought behavior change was primarily about willpower and discipline. I approached my own struggles with behavior change as personal failings rather than design problems. My view of design was more aesthetic than functional—I hadn’t fully appreciated how design could be leveraged as a powerful tool for influencing human behavior in positive ways.
I loved that this class combined design principles with psychological theory about decision-making. The human element was particularly compelling—understanding that behavior change isn’t just about logic or information, but about emotions, context, and environmental cues. The structure of learning concepts and then immediately putting them into practice through in-class activities that built toward our group project was incredibly effective for me.
I took this class because I struggle to change my own behavior and was in a rut, secretly hoping I would learn some secret about how to be my best self by intellectualizing my own behavior. Even more than the design tools and methods we learned, I am most likely to use the concepts about behavior change and apply them to my own life.
I think I will remember the readings we learned about building healthy habits ten years from now. Specifically, the concept of friction in my own life has been transformative. Understanding how small barriers can significantly impact behavior has changed how I approach habit formation.Additionally, concepts that impact people’s decisions such as loss aversion, sunk cost fallacy, and framing may prove useful in my professional life. These psychological insights offer powerful tools for understanding human behavior in various contexts beyond just personal habit formation.
While I can’t really think of anything that I wish went differently in terms of content (it was a lovely class experience), I would have preferred bigger checkpoints due once a week rather than smaller ones due every class. I often felt like I was forgetting an assignment, which stressed me out. Consolidating deliverables into fewer, more substantial checkpoints might have helped me better manage my workload.
Through this project and course, I’ve developed a more sophisticated understanding of behavior change. I now recognize that sustainable change rarely comes from willpower alone—it requires thoughtful design of our environments, routines, and feedback systems. I’ve begun to apply these principles to my own life, looking for ways to reduce friction for desired behaviors and increase it for unwanted ones.More broadly, I’ve gained appreciation for how design can be a powerful force for improving human wellbeing. The skills and perspectives I’ve developed in this class extend far beyond the specific project we created—they provide a foundation for approaching any behavioral challenge with greater empathy, creativity, and effectiveness.
Our Good Habit Jar design philosophy emerged from our understanding that sustainable behavior change rarely comes from willpower alone. Traditional approaches to reducing social media usage often rely on blocking apps, setting time limits, or using shame-based messaging about “wasted time.” These approaches typically fail because they don’t address the emotional and contextual factors driving social media use in the first place.
The Good Habit Jar works through several psychological mechanisms that align with what behavioral science tells us about effective interventions: First, it leverages the power of episodic memory and emotional association. By capturing not just what alternative activities users engage in but how they feel during these activities, the Good Habit Jar creates a compelling emotional narrative that can compete with the immediate gratification of social media. Second, it intervenes at the critical moment of decision-making. When users open social media—often automatically and without conscious intention—the Good Habit Jar displays these positive memories precisely when users are most vulnerable to habitual scrolling. This timing is crucial because it interrupts the automatic behavior pattern before it begins. Third, it uses positive reinforcement rather than punishment or restriction. Instead of making users feel bad about wanting to use social media or forcibly preventing them from accessing it, the Good Habit Jar simply reminds them of other activities they’ve enjoyed. This positive approach avoids triggering psychological reactance—the natural human tendency to resist when we feel our freedom is being restricted.
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the Good Habit Jar is how it becomes more effective over time. As users add more positive memories, the collage becomes richer and more diverse, offering a more compelling alternative to social media. This creates a virtuous cycle: the more users engage with alternative activities, the more memories they capture, and the more effective the intervention becomes.This self-reinforcing design addresses one of the common pitfalls of behavior change interventions: diminishing effectiveness over time as users become habituated. Instead of losing impact, the Good Habit Jar potentially gains strength through continued use.
