You might think humans are perfectly rational.
You’d be wrong.
We tell ourselves we’ll keep a tight diet and lose weight, but then we go to the cinema and can’t resist buying popcorn, the large portion. We feel pain, but we postpone going to the doctor because we’re afraid to find out we might have some terrible disease. We buy products we don’t need just because our friends did the same or because they’re on sale.
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Sounds anything like yourself?
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We make choices against our best interest and even when we know what we should be doing, we frequently act differently. And yet, most products, communication campaigns and policies are designed considering humans as rational agents who assess the benefits of each option and then chose and act in their best interest.
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However, academic research in economics, psychology and neuroscience helps us understand our moments of irrationality are systematic, predictable. They also explain why people behave the way they do and how they can be nudged in the right direction.
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Insights from behavioral science are already having a huge impact in the efficiency of government and business initiatives. Students can be steered to eat healthier food by placing the vegetables first at their school canteen. Product managers can design products people really value. The applications of behavioral insights are countless, and can be made to combine both the greater good and business value.
But that’s easier said than done. The theory is complex and while interesting to read, it’s difficult to know what to use especially when everyday life, existing habits and pressing deadlines kick in. That’s where we come in.
We dream of a world where people choose what’s best for them and have the ability to act on it systematically
At the Behavior Design Institute our mission is to build the bridge between theory and practice. We help individuals and organizations design behaviorally informed solutions that get results. We do that through three main activities:
Workshops - We travel the world teaching behavior design.
We give you simple tools to easily map relevant behavioral insights to your real world challenges and test their impact. We then help change your environment in subtle ways so you start applying right away and don’t forget what you’ve learned. That way you can systematically design products, services, communication and experiences that truly change behavior.
Consulting – We help organizations tackle tough behavioral challenges.
We dive into the context of your challenge by observing and talking to users, experts, frontline employees. We do academic research reviews and analyze data. Once we’ve gone through all the information we map the appropriate behavioral insights and use digital technologies and a lean approach to test solutions quickly and cheaply. Only then we scale them up.