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Digital Behavioral Design — Human behavior is programmable. A book on product design.
Human behavior is programmable. You just need to know the code. Here we introduce Behavioral Design: a design framework for programming human behavior.
In this book we focus on a particular area of behavior design: Habits. How they work and how your product can use Behavioral Design to become a daily habit for your users.
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Replies
Thanks @nireyal - you've been a huge part of this journey, dude. Looking forward to NYC soon!
@trace_cohen you know you and Brian are getting an autographed hardcopy, right ;)
Hi! We're @BoundlessAi (Boundless Mind) the team behind this brand new book. We will be here all day answering questions about our new book, behavioral design, the role of AI in habit forming products and anything else you can throw our way.
@boundlessai @mattmayberry This looks awesome. Just for context, how do you see this comparing to Nir Eyal's Hooked?
@boundlessai @mattmayberry I've been talking about you guys all over the world and mention you in my upcoming book. AMAZING WORK. GO FASTER!
@boundlessai @mattmayberry We're working on it man! Thanks for the support, @chrisdancy1 ! Let's catch up soon!
Hey @shanerostad ! Brown here (one of the Authors).
We see our book as a great read alongside "Hooked", Duhigg's "The Power of Habit", Wendle's "Designing for Behavior Change", and some of the work out of the Fogg Lab at Stanford. The CAR, Hook, and Cue-Routine-Reward Model share commonalities because they're all seeking to explore how the underlying neurology of habit formation should guide product-making decisions.
Uniquely, this first Volume of our series introduces what OTHER tools [beyond positive reinforcement] are in the Behavioral Design Toolbox, the ethical questions and imperatives around how to use Behavioral Design, guidance for businesses trying to make the most of BD, and as deep a dive into the underlying neuroscience and philosophy as we felt we could get away with ;)
@boundlessai @chrisdancy1 Chris! Great to hear from you. Im going to shoot you an email. Its been forever. Thanks for the support!
@dmitry_gorshkov You're obviously sick of the way Behavioral Design has been used to addict people to social apps and games. We are too. Behavior design can be used to change people in to their best self. And we're making these techniques available to the people working towards those goals.
Thanks for responding to this, wanted to add a question (Caveat that judging you book by limited information is unfair, though I've read Nir Eyal's "Hooked".
It seems from this screenshots of the snippets of the book that
a) theres mindfulness on the context that our relationships with technology can be much healthier than it is now, and design should honor that.
b) the model employs a "Variable Reward" (similar to Hooked) as part of the ways of driving future action.
Are variable rewards synonymous with creating an addictive feedback loop that one could say would be an unhealthy relationship with our technology? Is it absolutely necessary to game-ify actions that way, even if there meant for an overall positive outcome (e.g finishing your work emails)?
Hey @delajoo! Rams (one of the authors and cofounders) here.
Great questions!
a.) Absolutely: there is a mindfulness. In the intro, we review the ethics of Behavioral Design, throughout the text we reference some of the moral hazards, and in the Final Thoughts we propose a better world through the use of Persuasive AI.
b.) Not quite.
Variable Rewards (Reinforcement) are how the brain learns any new behavior from the positive consequences of our actions (Check Ch 3). They ARE a part of what powers addictive feedback loops. They are also how your brain learns *anything* from your positive experiences. They are a part of what shaped your personality, proclivities, beliefs, and habits. Variable reinforcement isn’t poorly aligned (it’s just a tool, after all), but it can be used in poorly-aligned ways.
Variable reinforcement is something evolution cobbled together to program animals from the consequences of our actions. When used in line with what a user wants out of their life, and their technology, Reinforcement is a technique for bringing about the kinds of behaviors a user already wanted.
And no (from our perspective) we don’t consider the introduction of positivity or delight ‘gamification’, per se. We kinda hate gamification: tasks have their own intrinsic dignity. Adding a UX element that visually, ambiently, or communicatively makes a user feel valid and appreciated for their behavior doesn’t detract from the dignity Product, but points and badges sure can ;)
@delajoo You're welcome man! email me at ramsay@boundless.ai to talk shop - or if you want to try our AI solution for Variable Reinforcement on a Product you're developing!
I tried to get a copy, but I didn't get an email :( EDIT: nvm showed up under Promotions in gmail
@adrian_carolli please check your spam folder. If it's not there, DM me your email address and I'll email you a copy personally. Sorry for the difficulty.
EDIT: Glad to see that you got it.
Great book, very helpful for our web design company. Thanks for sharing - www.brandflare.uk
Excellent book. Digital behavioral design is able to turn consciousness and thinking. The view of many circumstances is changing. More projects like this.
Wow, this is what we need to improve our way to design great tool in the future. Godspeed @BoundlessAi team.
Nir and Far