Exploring Problem-framing through Behavioural Heuristics

Design for behaviour change (Lilley, 2009; Wever, 2012) is part of what Redström (2005) calls “a progression towards the user becoming the subject of design” (p. 124), with “design as an intervention into multiple and interpenetrating technical, material and social systems” (Mazé & Redström, 2008, p. 55). Dubberly and Pangaro (2007, p. 1302) note design’s growing concern with “ways of behaving”, and popular guidebooks and toolkits explaining the practical applicability of a range of behavioural principles to design have become common in recent years, particularly in interaction design, service design and user experience design (e.g., Anderson, 2010, 2011; Dirksen, 2012; Lockton, Harrison, & Stanton, 2010a; Pfarr, Cervantes, Lavey, Lee, Hintzman, & Vuong, 2010; Weinschenk, 2009, 2011). Much of this focuses on changing behaviour: the aim generally is to translate psychological principles or effects into strategies or techniques which can be applied via the design of products and services, to influence users’ behaviour, often for social benefit (e.g., Tromp, Hekkert, & Verbeek, 2011; Visser, Vastenburg, & Keyson, 2011) or environmental benefit (e.g., Lockton, Cain, Harrison, Giudice, Nicholson, & Jennings, 2011; Mazé & Redström, 2008). The field overlaps substantially with the aims of persuasive technology (Fogg, 2003), and may contribute to transformation design (Sangiorgi, 2011) as design is employed to facilitate change. As design practice becomes increasingly focused on people, modelling human behaviour is becoming an explicit aspect of designers’ responsibilities (Keinonen, 2010). The different approaches taken to understanding behaviour can result in a wide spectrum of strategies, framing both problems and solutions in a variety of ways (e.g., Brand, 2004; Lidman & Renström, 2011; Lockton et al., 2010a; Tang & Bhamra, 2008; Tromp et al., 2011; Wever, van Kuijk, & Boks, 2008; Zachrisson & Boks, 2012). What is still needed is an approach to modelling which links insights from contextual research (with users themselves) to possible design strategies (Lockton, Harrison, & Stanton, 2012). This has the potential to be particularly valuable in design for behaviour change, giving designers greater understanding of users’ behaviour and how to influence it. The research question we explored in this paper, is whether it is possible to develop an approach that links insights from user research with applicable design techniques in the context of ORIGINAL ARTICLE