So, when and how do we turn on the light to let the dogs drool?

Which design disciplines do not elicit behavior?
An exist sign gets me to go that way, no?
A logo got a whole nation to vote (overstating for a point).
A kitchen gets me to cook.
A chair properly encourages me to leave a restaurant to make more room for others (McDees)

So I have no quams with the ding or the drool part of ANY aspect of design.

My issue is then, what is IxD? So I’ll tell you!

IxD is the *intentionality* of doing all the above with a focus on improving the human condition AND doing so with an understanding of not just success, but aesthetics.

A clay hut has architecture embedded in its result, but it had no intentionality at the time of its construction around architectural aesthetics. It is in both the intentionality and the focus on humans and the theories that derive both of those AND aesthetics where the rubber hits the road.

– dave

Wow..it seems ‘duh’ to me too. It would have been interesting to see exactly what the pushback was. Makes me wonder whether it was some tiny detail or semantics, which is what our community loves to pick at so much. I’ll watch the video later and see what comments come up here

Eh… I guess writing is not the strong point of some designers, because it’s not very ‘duh’ to me. What is the whole point?

Behaviour is our medium? Sounds like a lot of hot air. Who isn’t trying to elicit some type of behavior?

Then secondly if behavior is what you’re trying to influence, shouldn’t there be a moral implication in it? I mean if all you’re trying to do is elicit a certain behavior then you might as well design beautiful lamps for Pavlov’s dogs. Is that the right thing to do?

Then thirdly what does it mean to elicit a certan behavior, are some designs not about behavior but other things. Symbolism, identity, branding etc.

I think by claiming that behavior is the medium at once things are simplified and complicated way too much.

@Brendan, I agree that Robert’s use of the phrase “Behavior is our Medium” is somewhat confusing. He actually talks about that in the post I linked to, backs away a bit.

However, the larger point, that behavior is what we’re after, is the issue.

And, to your point…even if you aren’t for making the world a better place (like designing ecologically or with sustainability in mind), you’re still trying to change someone’s behavior at some point.

That’s actually what logos and branding are for…long-term behavior change.

So actually we’re agreeing. But changing behavior is not only the realm of Interaction Designers. You might want to specify what kind of behavior is related to it and what not.

And that still leaves the moral question open if all is allowed to elicit a certain type of behavior for the long or short term.

For example cathedrals for hundreds of years have been designed to awe the visitor. Communicating the power of god, religion and the church.

Is that a good thing? These are questions that come up when you claim you are trying to elicit a certain type of behavior. It would be a good idea to describe the behavior you want to elicit. Should the person you’re communicating with (are you communicating or giving orders?) come out better or is your only intention to make money, or impress someone?

@Brendan – yes, we’re agreeing.

And wrt the moral question…that’s always an interesting discussion. I’m not sure where the line between design and morality lies.

@Brendan, you seem to be turning this into a “Why design (i.e. influence behavior)?” or “What do we design now that we know we influence behavior?” discussion versus a “What is design?” discussion. Which is valid, but not what this conversation seemed to be about initially. But, if you want to have that discussion, watch Marc Rettig’s IxDA09 talk when it’s available.

My view is that you’re going to confirm what you know, that some designers and hirers of designers want to do the noble things and others are more purely focused on self-gain. Knowing that design can powerfully enable us to influence behavior is a tool. A hammer can build or kill. It is all in the hands of the wielder.

I agree that we design to enable/elicit behavior but I would be a little more specific when describing how IxD elicits behavior. Behavior is our goal, getting to that goal is our medium (thats the real ‘duh!’ statement imho).

We create structural frameworks and manipulate the presentation of those frameworks to enable desired behaviors.

I recommend jumping in to 5m10s on this great interview with Kevin Kelly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIe124iPTrU
(or watch the whole thing if you have time)

He has a very different perspective but discusses the concept of (interaction) Defaults which can define the way society can be influenced by the systems it creates.

/pauric

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I’m not turning this into a discussion on “why design” or even “what is design”. I’m just trying to clarify what is meant by “elicit behavior”.

It is for a reason that I refer to Pavlov. What do you mean by behavior? What a dog does when you reward him for doing a trick? Or are you really talking about educating, informing or indoctrinating through design.

And here I refer back to the cathedrals. The design or architecture was meant to not only to elicit behavior but to instill the power of the church. So IxD in that light can be seen to be much more than eliciting a certain type of behavior in that light.

I agree that interaction design can be used to elicit behavior, but I think it is more commonly used to allow or support a set of behaviors. Of course saying it this way makes it sound boring and framing it as a moral question makes it sound scary. But I believe we can think about it in another way. If we gather rich customer data and understand how people really act in the world, we can use that information to create new interaction designs that support new behaviors that are of value to people.

So I wholeheartedly agree that interaction design should be about understanding behavior—understanding what people want and need, understanding how they actually do things, and understanding the behavior a design needs to support. If your product or service needs to elicit certain behavior to be successful, then why shouldn’t the interaction designer understand that and figure out how to capitalize on it? The question of whether you do it for “good or evil” is irrelevant—that is always a personal choice.

Facebook uses interaction design very effectively to suck you in and get you engaged. You could argue that increased social interaction is good, but you could also argue that increasing the amount of time someone spends in front of a computer screen is bad.

The Wii Fit uses interaction design to try to promote a healthier lifestyle and get you to exercise more and be aware of your health. Of course they are also trying to exploit an untapped market and make money. Does that make them bad?

In the end, if their designs are successful because they understood human behavior—isn’t that good interaction design?

-dave

Agreed, understanding behavior is indeed more important than eliciting behavior. But I think the whole term behavior is a bit off.

What you are really trying to understand / invent is communication by design. You want to interact with someone, not only anticipate their behavior. There must be a better term.

On the moral part. I’m not trying to identify what is bad or good. I am asking what role morality plays. There is nothing wrong with making money with good idea’s. But if you’re trying to influence behavior then you can not prevent an ethical discussion.

Fabricant was talking at an interaction design conference saying that they were “influencing behaviour.” I’m not surprised it raised eyebrows! IxD is about facilitating behaviour, while design overall is about influencing it. Good interaction cannot influence by definition because it’s about usability: making something I want to do easy, not getting me to do something I didn’t intend to do. Influence is about the wider practice of design in general.

That all this then gets twisted here on this blog into the idea that all interaction designers are the same as graphic designers is just dumb. There really is no excuse for this sloppiness: when you use the word “design” here you MUST clarify what you mean by that. Visual? Interaction? Architectural? Experience? Process? Service? They’re ALL different!

True, extremely true, which is why I think social sciences and cognitive psychology should be taught much more explicitly to design students.

I’m halfway through this and its a good talk, but I want to shoot the videographer. KEEP IT ZOOMED OUT SO I CAN SEE THE SLIDES.

Jonathan: You may not intend to influence behavior and you may think you’re just facilitating, but you cannot make everything equally easy to do. People are more likely to do things they can do easily, so when you make some things easier (or harder!) you cannot help but to influence behavior.

This is a very interesting post to me, as I majored in psychology. It makes a lot of sense that a certain design will elicit a desired behavior. So, for example, if you have an ecommerce website, it is very important to implement designs that will bring about buying behaviors from your visitors.
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I disagree with the word “elicit” in this argument. I believe we designers facilitate the connection between a user and her data.

Read more of my thoughts here.

@Brendan, @Sascha @Nathanial: To your concern, I’ve added a bit above where I explain what I mean by elicit:

Note: Several folks have pushed back on the term elicit above. I mean it in the weaker sense…that we design to support certain behaviors and if users perform those behaviors through our software then we’ve been successful. I realize that elicit can feel nasty…like we’re getting people to do something they maybe shouldn’t do, but that’s not exactly what I mean…even though design certainly has that potential.

@Brendan, @Sascha @Nathanial: you guys are *kidding*, right?

Neutrality of design is just about as real as objectivity in the media. *Everything* we design influences behaviour. If your designs are influencing behaviour (they are) without your knowledge, you’re simply naive and doing you job poorly. Far better to use your knowledge of design to influence behaviour consciously than to flail about with your eyes closed, dontcha think?

Talking to someone influences their behaviour. The clothes you wear do the same. The car your drives does the same. And so on. As Phillip said, influence itself isn’t evil, it’s all about how you use your influence.

And as Jonathan said, suggesting that “interaction designers are the same as graphic designers is just dumb”. It most certainly is. Graphic designers aren’t half as naive and ignorant about what they’re doing, and therefore are far better at it.

@sascha
I think your take on design is not the design being taught any longer. At least not at respected design programs.

Design today first and foremost starts with 2 questions: Why? & How? and then what? First we observe, then figure out a problem and ask why it exists. Then we ask how can we make it better and in so doing we model a vision for what better actually is. Meaning, we first envision the change in human behavior before we envision the behavior of the object. We do this so that we can map the behavior of the object against the behaviors we believe will solve the problems.

Objects, spaces, visuals, etc. are only well designed when they answer questions.

– dave

Its good to remember that beliefs create behavior not vice vs.

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There seems to be a notion of some sort behaviorial algebra here that a designer can learn in order to produce certain acts performed by the targets of the “design” when successful. I think David is much closer to the mark with a notion of behavior as something already ongoing and pervasive and your design as a hopefully malleable waystation or node in a network of behavior and interaction that attends to multiple needs. If designed well, the experience of one’s time in your waystation reflects well on the brand very broadly conceived.

I think I was misunderstood. I do think that “changing behavior” or “transformational design” or “behavioral economics” or “Captology: Computer aided persuasion” is definitely a piece of the puzzle. Is it math? Not yet, though some work by BJ Fogg and his Captology work is definitely heading in that direction. Is it IxD? Not soley, but a piece of it.

Take a look at game design, which is totally about behavior manipulation through simple Pavlovian and Skinner behavioral psychology through the use of rewards and punishment. This system has been applied to many other systems, from Digg to Obama’s virtual social networking campaign strategy.

This whole notion of “should we or shouldn’t we” is quite a useless question and disingenuous b/c everyone who puts something new out into the universe is effecting change. The Intentionality is what matters and if you do so not just knowingly but using design methods of creativity and apply theories and practices of IxD to do it.

Hell! advertising is one HUGE Pavlovian movement from the age of the beginning of Design Obsolescence to the beauty industry, etc. Stop being all high and mighty about this.

– dave

We get paid to do a job, are hired most often as designers to fulfill some conscious objectives, naturally. But this is not is the sum total of what is taking place in any market and interaction design is taking place in something more than a market. Of course it’s important, primary even in terms of MY behavior! In most cases a site or product only exists for some very practical and obvious purpose. But how many times as a designer have you had to fight for a broader notion of how this is more of almost living system that people experience in a more holistic and dynamic way. And most important as participants. And how surprised people have been when their “designs” are used in ways completely “unintended.” I don’t believe this is high and mighty to think this way. It is a notion that behavior precedes insight. That what needs to be designed or rather built is a environment that is complementary to a broad range of behavior and action around the product and brand. A site designed just few years ago to facilitate an already existing practice of sharing photos of college bound students is now spoken about as if it always existed and is a natural marketplace of brandbuilding. And advertising is still trying to get it’s sea legs in this environment.

Behavioral economics? I don’t think we’re there yet:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=930400. But I’m really not trying to be needlessly argumentative. I just think there are some new ways we should be looking at how design in this field in conceived and practiced. There was a great issue of “Interactions” devoted to the issue that spoke about this far better than I can.

The whole point of marketing is to get the customer to change his behavior and purchase your product. Also change where he looks for all his or her needs.

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This seems so obvious however accomplishing the behavior change is not that easy.

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Changing the idea that a garage door is nothing more than a necessity to a home or building can be a challenge. It is the largest opening into the structure and also the weakest part of the structure as well. Hard to get people to spend the money necessary to purchase a quality secure door that will protect their home or building.

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Getting people to change their behavior to purchase something they really do not need but in the back of their minds have a want for is the key.

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I agree, in general our actions,exhibit thought, and thought exhibits behavior. In a general sense, we are living in a world that is all condition and response.

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Isn’t whole purpose of having an online presence simply to inform or persuade? Even if you are informing, why not inform as effective as possible. The right design can really grab a viewer’s attention and convey the right message.

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“Hard to get people to spend the money necessary to purchase a quality secure door that will protect their home or building.”
FULL ACK

A great design is good, always. I´am sure that people love cool animations and grafics. But i´ve no sense for designs ;(

Even if some designers aren’t aware of it or choose not to acknowledge it, they do try to elicit certain behaviors in conceptualizing their designs: from the simple response of clicking that button or to buying that product. It’s probably the word ‘elicit’ that is getting their beef but just substitute it with a synonym for a more subtle semantics. Just imagine all the design work done on an advertisement to ‘encourage’ people to rush to a store and buy the product.

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Well that puts everything into perspective for me…I think!

I believe we could Guide, Support or Control behavior with design but not change.

The late Thomas Gilbert, a guru in the performance-improvement world (as opposed to the “training” world), made a useful distinction between behavior (actions) and accomplishment (results):

Behavior you take with you; accomplishment you leave behind.

My hunch is that some people respond almost viscerally to the “elicit behavior” idea, even while conceding that one purpose of design is to increase the likelihood of certain results.

So your question–”What do people have to do for you to be successful?”–is a way of saying “What results will say the design was successful?”

That helps remove the bogeyman of behaviorism.

To those who think that interaction design can’t change behavior, consider the following:

I recently got a Wii Fit. It’s a clever, mildly cajoling device that shows you how to do yoga, strength, and aerobic exercises. With a virtual trainer on the screen you can see how you are supposed to do the exercise and then follow along. Using the balance board, you also get direct feedback on how well you are doing them. (Not for all exercises, but for enough.) It also measures your weight, BMI, and Wii Fit Age and encourages you to do this every day. You can then track your progress in these areas across time and even set a weight goal for yourself.

I don’t need to lose weight, but my “good” cholesterol is a little low and my doctor keeps telling me to exercise regularly. In fact she’s been telling me this for 4 or 5 years. I just haven’t been able to find the time or even an activity that would compel me to exercise regularly. I usually worry about it for about 2 weeks and then don’t think about it until I see the doctor again.

Since I have started using the Wii Fit though, I find myself thinking about exercising and trying to make time to do it. I’m sure it doesn’t have the same affect on everyone, but it is certainly changing my behavior.

David Rondeau
Design Chair
Twitter: dbrondeau

This is a great discussion, but I have problems with both “elicit” and “behavior.” Of course I’m coming from the social media perspective.

Elicit: seems to suggest a false causality. In a UCD approach to social media, user motives and intentions are the cause of action. Actions are social, and so an other user, or audience, orients or guides social action. Social interaction and communication are not elicited by design but initiated by users engaged socially.

Behavior: user psychology may be manifest in behavior, but includes more than what is captured in social media. And in any kind of communication and social action-based practice, motives and intentions will exceed what’s observed, captured, and facilitated (by social media) as behaviors. There’s more to user psychology than behavior alone; though behavior may be all we can “see.”

I think social practices shape user and social actions, and over time design can structure and inform them. Social architecture can dynamically reflect back that participation and shape it some more. Social navigation can guide a user or audience. But social practices, which include etiquette, themed activities, transactions, economies, relationships and so son, are more likely to shape interaction than design per se. I see the “structure,” “system,” and dynamics belonging more to social forms and organization. Facilitated by design insofar as it constrains and enables, and provides functionalities and mediates communication.

It’s not just the use of the word “elicit” but this sentence in particular that I’m responding to:

“I have to admit that I’m also quite shocked that some interaction designers don’t see what they do as influencing behavior.”.

Design doesn’t influence behavior, it facilitates. it. The user already has an intention with software, IxD just makes it as easy as possible for that intention to happen. Isn’t that the point of user research?

Nathaniel, you are avoiding the thesis of the video which is the point of the article. YES, that can be an approach to IxD, but from a Captology perspective, there can be a lot more than mere facilitation.

To me the problem w/ your framing is my problem w/ UCD in general which is that UCD limits design’s goals to those of the human’s goals. But if “social change” is your goal then you will use user research not to learn their goals per se in the same light, but rather to learn how to manipulate (in all its negative and positive contexts) user goals towards a higher purpose.

Now like any other tool, it is not the tool itself that is morally to blame for outcomes, but the user of the tool. But just b/c it can be done for bad doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at all. That is between you, your G-d, your neighbor, etc.

David,

Point well-taken — but I think if “social” or any kind is involved in or around the design, in so much as design facilitates social practices, then the user’s interest in communicating and interacting with others has to move up the chain some. When the user is engaged in mediated communication, the design and its features, architecture, and so on are but part of the interaction. User-application-user interaction involves concerns different from those in user-application interactions. The user becomes involved in the success and failure, as well as the many different forms and modes, of interacting with others.

We might “manipulate” the user’s experience by means of design, but we need a richer language or framework for grasping how those interactions between users scale and reinforce one another. Social media permit a unique kind of social interaction — one approached with user-centricity but extended to different kinds of social interactions.

cheers,
adrian

Dave

Read my blog to understand my point better. I’m not avoiding anything.

It’s not just the use of the word “elicit” but this sentence in particular that I’m responding to:

“I have to admit that I’m also quite shocked that some interaction designers don’t see what they do as influencing behavior.”.

Design doesn’t influence behavior, it facilitates. it. The user already has an intention with software, IxD just makes it as easy as possible for that intention to happen. Isn’t that the point of user research?

@metall, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but your take on Interaction Design is quite antiquated. It is very usability focused and interaction design has moved way beyond simple “is it possible to achieve goals”. And user research should be not just about discovering user’s goals, but also what gets in the way of them achieving their goals as well as about how to change people so that their goals align with the goals of the organization.

– dave