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New Brief for Design—Manoeuvering the Behavioural Iceberg
- 7. Figure-Ground Articulation • The two components are perceived as two segments of the visual field differing not only in color, but in some other phenomenal characteristics as well. • The figure has an object-like character, whereas the ground has less perceptual saliency and appears as 'mere' background. • The areas of the figure and the ground usually do not appear juxtaposed in a common plane, as in a mosaic, but rather as stratified in depth: there is a tendency to see the figure as positioned in front, and the ground at a further depth plane and continuing to extend behind the figure, as if occluded by it. • Furthermore, the border separating the two segments is perceived as belonging to the figure rather than to the ground, and as delineating the figure's shape as its contour, whereas it is irrelevant to the shape of the ground. • Certain displays are bi-stable, in that what is perceived as figure can also be perceived as ground and vice-versa. • However, in displays in which a smaller region is wholly surrounded by a larger region, it is usually the former that appears as figure (although it may also be seen as a hole), and the latter as ground.
- 8. Good Gestalt / Prägnanz • Elements tend to be grouped together if they are parts of a pattern which is a good Gestalt— meaning as simple, elegant, orderly, balanced, unified, coherent, regular, etc as possible, given the input. • Gestalt psychology tries to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world. • Its central principle is that when the human mind (perceptual system) forms a percept or gestalt, the whole has a reality of its own, independent of the parts.
Notes de l'éditeur
- In the 25-odd years of my practice, I’ve seen one big change—designers today are being asked to deliver behaviours rather than artefacts. No wonder then, that we are increasingly becoming curious about and fascinated by how human beings exhibit certain unconscious, almost automatic behaviours – across the board.
- These images are captured and shared by Jane Fulton Suri, a behavioural psychologist who works with Ideo – the world’s top design practice today. As you see, these behaviours are almost universal and throw light on our relationship with the physical/material and social/cultural worlds we inhabit.
- These patterns, that she calls “thoughtless acts”, are in fact informed by unwritten rules and codes of behaviour that we all know already – that we seem to be wired for. Obviously, many of them are evolutionary-biological in origin, while others would be socio-cultural.
- But this is the fact – that behaviour as exhibited, observed and understood comprises a small fraction of the enormous complex that informs it. Like an iceberg, most of it lies underneath the surface of our consciousness and control.
- It is this iceberg that designers are being increasingly called upon to manipulate—akin to making the elephant dance. The question is if this can at all be done, and if yes, how.
- It is not surprising that design has been anointed as the “behaviour-change” expertise – given its century-old expertise in “subjective” areas like elegance & aesthetics, pleasure & gratification, and meaningfulness & experience, and correlating these with the worlds of business and technology.
- One of the lessons designers learn is about how human perception works. For example, how we automatically separate a visual into a foregrounded ‘object’ and background ‘endless space’. We do this even when there aren’t two separate objects or planes – as long as certain conditions exist.
- Another example of human perception at play—we tend to separate elements in ways that tax our imagination the least. Until one of the conditions is tweaked that is. Designers train to use such principles to manipulate human perception… and thereby behaviour.
- We manipulate size, shape, shade, colour as well as placement, layout and arrangement to ‘order’ human perception and behaviour. Note that the word ‘order’ simultaneously connotes ‘structure’ as well as ‘command’ – which is precisely what we do. We manipulate our perception of structure and organization, and thereby our response to it – i.e. behaviour.
- This should make it evident how those building-blocks of design are deployed in tandem to produce the ‘artificial world’, the representations and interfaces through which we make sense of and act on/manipulate our world – whether as ‘maps’ or ‘UIs’ or three-dimensional objects or ambiences, or even complex spatial systems combining objects, representations, interfaces and ambiences/spaces.
- Why do we do this? Our instinct originates from our in-built resistance to chaos and disorder. We are wired to seek out patterns and explanations that help us to understand (first stage), predict (second stage) and control/manipulate (final stage) the world around us – which includes the natural world as well as fellow human beings. We are constantly striving to ‘simplify’ and ‘abstract’ the complexity around us – and make it meaningful or relevant to our [subjective] selves. It is this bridge between order and emotion that design excels at.
- One of the features of being the supreme ‘tool-making’ species that we are, is that we have developed an exquisite instinctive understanding of and response to ‘affordance’ – which is described as a relationship between an object and an organism wherein the object presents certain feature-stimuli that ‘dictate’ the organism to perform a particular corresponding action with or upon it. Design has mastered this topic to a point of science as well as fine art.
- Or have they? We come across countless such examples of utterly frustrating and exasperating ‘design’ in our everyday lives that makes us suspect if designers can even think, let alone create something.
- The answer of course comes from the domain of human behaviour, perception and cognition again—that we are all prisoners of our worldviews. Which is why designers also need to be free of their specialist lens at times in order to see things as they are. One of our greatest maxims comes from a pioneer Ergonomist, Etienne Grandjean, who coined the phrase “Fit the Task/Device to the (hu)Man” as opposed to the dominant convention of “Fitting the (hu)Man to the Task/Device” – which even the best of us forget from time to time.
- Talking of seeing things as they are – or as the rest of the world sees them – empathy has emerged as a massively important aspect in any kind of behavioural problem-solving or manipulation. We all know that ‘psychology’ underlies seemingly irrational or mysterious behaviours, and designers are trained to investigate and explore this space to come up with insights and triggers that might produce a shift in perceptions, attitude/motivation and behavioural response.
- Here is a case study from GE on how they were able to almost completely eliminate fear and anxiety in children’s response to MRI scanning—that in fact required nearly 80% of them to be sedated for the procedure, and caused untold trauma to the entire family, not just themselves. A collaborative and multi-disciplinary empathic approach helped them understand the nature and extent of this problem, and also come up with a brilliant solution for it.
- Increasingly, our ‘irrationality’ is being better understood and celebrated as exemplifying our core nature, as well as potential. Fun, play, enjoyment, pleasurability, satisfaction, flow, delight… are some of the concepts and values that are being increasingly linked to productivity, efficiency, success—and profitability.
- Even then, the danger of overdoing it – or missing the critical point – remains as strong as ever. Zealous optimism and passion for helping blind us to the empathic view, which is often obvious and staring us in the face. A critical outlook and healthy scepticism for one’s own motives must always be maintained.
- IDEO must be credited for coming up with highly effective and practical frameworks for Design Thinking, in collaboration with the Stanford University. These helped make Design Thinking not just legitimate and respectable but even sought-after around the world. One of their primary innovations was to introduce the concept of ‘Desirability’ as an essential component of the innovation triad—not just essential, but the non-negotiable and leading force.
- In brief, the design process involves three major stages: Discovery, Ideation and Iteration.
- Discovery requires deep empathy which can be achieved by immersion, ideation requires a readiness and celebration of out of the box thinking, and iteration requires rapid and iterative prototyping and testing/validation of the shortlisted ideas.
- In fact, one of the biggest challenges in the ‘Discovery’ phase is seeing what’s obvious and right in front of our own eyes. We are usually so obsessed with possible solutions that we fail to see the real issues or opportunities before us.
- Ideation requires abandoning judgmental, evaluative and rational thinking in order to unlock our creativity and imagination. Internalizing concepts like ‘What if…?’ and ‘Why not…?’ helps achieve this.
- It’s not enough in most cases to have that one breakthrough idea – it is essential now to review the entire ‘journey’ of the prospective user or consumer and build in ‘delight points’ throughout.
- However, one of the biggest barriers to behaviour change is prior habits, which can actually be subdivided into three levels. The point is, these can defy the best-laid plans and implementations to deliver ‘delight’.
- Brian Wansink studies eating behaviours – and has explored how to change our eating habits in order to attain healthier lifestyles. He advocates a ‘small intervention / big impact’ approach – in this case, reducing the size of our plates and cutlery.
- Fogg has proposed an ability-motivation model and ‘triggers’ that can bring people ‘into the fold’. Wendel has proposed an ‘action funnel’ that is fraught with challenges at every level that could lead to regress.
- Eyal has proposed this four-step looped process that he says is effective in ‘hooking’ consumers.
- Wendel admits that changing or breaking a habit is extremely hard – and suggests three steps in increasing levels of difficulty and complexity – cheat people into switching habits, replace the previous habit with another one, and appeal to conscious choice.
- An example of cheating is tricking them into a pre-set default choice – ‘opting out’ to make a choice rather than ‘opting in’.
- Replacing a habit with a new one requires a multi-pronged approach, and here are some documented tactics.
- The conscious change approach is the hardest of all and requires all the earlier tactics and more—but it has the best chances of sustaining.
- Let’s look at some examples now—this is The Ugly Indian, a purely voluntary crowdsourcing initiative to sustainably transform city streets. Their core insight is that people adapt behaviour according to the perceived norms of their immediate environment, and so if the perceived norm is cleanliness, they would refrain from littering. This approach has worked like magic in most cases.
- A related example is the revamp of Indian Railways ticketing offices in the late 1980s. Primarily meant to accommodate computers, the resultant changes simultaneously improved all-round quality and environment of the space – such as lighting, airconditioning, flooring, seating, etc. The result has been dramatic – these spaces are no longer off-limits for women, the elderly or other vulnerable groups.
- An effort to trigger behaviour change is evident in some of the initiatives of the Modi government – like the emotional/ethical appeal to surrender one’s extra LPG cylinder, complemented by a crisp, 5-step online process that takes you to its completion. Government has issued a notification for all government websites to be similarly revamped for a not more than 5-step interaction for the user to reach her/his desired end-goal on that website.
- Often, behaviour doesn’t need to be changed as much as observed, learnt from and validated. Indians are masters at improvising workarounds, and these often tend to be the simplest, most elegant, economic and implementable solutions to the problem at hand. All one needs to do is enhance them for even greater delight.
- And sometimes, one needs to step outside the logical and practical to come up with out of the box insights and ideas for behaviour change strategies & innovations. This is the Japanese tradition of Chindogu – the art of coming up with 100% practical yet ‘useless’ inventions, that on second thought don’t appear useless at all.
- From my own portfolio, while trying to design a UX/UI for first-time tablet users, the proposed metaphor was a derivation of their own practice – of keeping records of transactions in little chits and notes.
- It needs to be emphasized that the three stages are separately and together subject to iteration, as often as needed. Often, one might need to revisit one’s starting assumptions after getting feedback on the prototyped solution. That is why this process needs to be as rapid and low-investment as possible.
- Design Thinking then is a process of innovation that privileges ‘human desirability’ above all else, and that draws on the emotional, subjective and psychological aspects of people in order to generate solutions that delight.
- Here is my version of the Discover-Ideate-Prototype model: benchmark insights at ‘AHA’, ideas at ‘AWESOME’ and execution at ‘WOW’. You will never go wrong with this combination.
- Deccan Centre for Innovation & Design is my latest initiative to plug Design Thinking (and a lot more) into training and building Impact Entrepreneurship as a career option for our immensely talented youth.