**Inside behavioral science: an insight lens for service designers**

12 min readJun 15, 2022

This article is the result of a research concerning service design and behavioral science that took place in 2021 within the project Service Design Tools. The scope of this research was to understand possible connections among those fields: the investigation required 6 months and included interviews with 5 experts, 3 designers and 2 behavioral scientists.

What you will read:

A premise to the topic: if we refer to new habits and actions (especially when we talk about sustainable future and social issues), then the contribution of behavioral science in service design can be really important.
Hints to behavioral science literature: we are irrational human beings, understanding the patterns of our mind can give more grounded explanations to the insights of service design.
The behavioral design guidelines: suggestions on how and when to apply this extra-disciplinary knowledge in the service design practice.

⚠️ Pay attention

We will use behavioral science and behavioral design as synonyms to simplify some concepts, but be aware that there are differences to be considered when referring to each term.

An important premise: a greater rationalization of behavioral science in the service design process is needed, especially with the growing expectation of having more ethical and sustainable futures

Sustainability is a very broad concept and our purpose here is not to go deep into this topic. However, for the sake of this research it is important to underline that sustainability should be the aim of our social actions and the goal of a common project which concerns us as human beings: sustainability (a broad term that encompasses not only environmental but also social sustainability) is our future and we must pursue it by collectively establishing a coherent system of values, knowledge and habits.

If we consider service design as an exploratory approach that allows us to better know people and shape their (future) ways of living, sustainability becomes nowadays a mandatory step in every project’s development process.

Service design investigates relationships, how they fit into social systems, with the aim of developing experiences fueled by aspirations for longer-term and more sustainable living practices.

Behavioral design is responsible for understanding the nature of human actions, giving them direction and consistency, so when it comes to sustainable futures the human challenge requires more than individual behavioral changes: for these reasons service design seems to be an ideal testing area for this practice, the proper context for developing collective and shared experiences, feelings of social inclusion and awareness about the world we inhabit.

More than other design disciplines, service design can benefit from behavioral science in monitoring behaviors not only across the different touchpoints of the service system, but also observing them over time and accompanying the desired change in the people’s decision-making.

“When we talk about sustainability, lots of organizations refer to the technical and material side of things, which is necessary, but it’s not the entire story: if we have the right technical things, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we will work together towards a sustainable future, because people will have to change their behavior and routines to adapt to that new context. For example, there are these shower hats that reduce water and stimulate users to shower for just a few minutes. Those are behavior design triggered solutions, but they’re just on a micro level: we need to look way more into the behavior of people from the group level point of view.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

Behavioral science is actually needed in the service process, especially now that the call to design sustainable worlds is becoming a duty. Therefore behavioral design seems to be a very logical lens of analysis: everyone has to be engaged in our future (sustainable) goals and people need to develop knowledge about the problem as well as to be able to help in building the upcoming solutions.

⚠️ Nevertheless, behavioral design is not yet service specific

While service design and its process is more and more settled, the contribution of behavioral science in this discipline is still in the making.

“Service design is now very established and is doing great games. Behavioral design is still not that settled.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

However, the commonalities between the two disciplines and the ways they could intersect in the process are manyfold: both observe people’s actions, building customer insights and trying to understand their needs, expectations and beliefs, with the aim of designing desirable and effective systems. Nonetheless while service design helps understand people needs and perceptions, it does not explicitly reflect on why people behave the way they do: behavioral design comes to the design process’ help and could be considered as a lens through which to look at the service system, a tool that gives consistency to the service narration, making user research and project insights more effective, efficient and theoretically grounded.

“Behavioral design in my mind has a huge relationship with service design and when I talk to people they always say to me: ‘How do I get into behavioral design?’ and I say ‘Go learn service design’. If you don’t understand a system of a service, you cannot understand a system of behavior, because you need a real solid foundation first.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

Let’s take a small step back before reaching the heart of the results of our research and let’s take a moment to focus on some hints of the scientific theory that underlies the behavioral design.

Where behavioral design starts from: the theory of this discipline

People do behave in predictably irrational ways as Dan Ariely explains in his book (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions), assumption which is the basis of the contemporary behavioral studies begun in the mid-twentieth century; formerly, neoclassical cognitive laws described individuals as perfectly rational agents: recent behavioral considerations (M. Allais and H.A. Simon) challenged these assumptions, arguing that individuals are not fully rational actors, but are plagued by bias and heuristics.

Behavioral choices often aim at satisfying current conditions rather than optimizing personal resources (as instead recognized by the standard theory); people, for example, assign greater value on goods they already own (Loss aversion), or choose immediate reward over bigger rewards that could come later in the future (Hyperbolic discounting). Again, they rely on options whose chances of success they know best, while they tend to avoid lesser-known opportunities (Ambiguity effect). These are examples of mental short-cuts that can quickly and intuitively generate rapid answers to problems. They represent the autopilot strategy of the subconscious part of our brain, which is called System 1 (intuitive, automatic and experience-based), making it possible to process the large amount of information in our everyday life. On the other hand, the System 2 is reflective and analytical, it requires intention and high mental effort and is therefore rarely used, only when circumstances require it (Dual System Theory, D. Kahneman and A. Tversky).

We know now that we make decisions in an eminently irrational way (we’re confronted by a tremendous amount of information daily), however our strategies and thought connections are not random, but predictable: science indeed has recognized patterns, bias and heuristics, formulating theory and providing grounded models for identifying people’s decision-making.

Let’s analyze some of those models that can be found in literature; they have been eminently tested in the social innovation and healthcare context — and they are already included as tools in service design projects.

COM-B model: proposes that there are three components to any (B) behavior: © capability, (O) opportunity and (M) motivation; singling out these three elements can help analyze the nature of actions and behaviors.
B=MAP model: helps to weigh a (B) behavior based on (M) motivation (A) ability and (P) prompts and allows you to understand when this behavior becomes a habit.
Socio-Ecological model: is useful to analyze the spheres of influence of a target behavior by scaling from the individual orb, to the relationship, to the community, up to the society sphere; changing behaviors is not just a matter of personal decisions, every behavior is determined by a range of external factors and influences.
Trans-theoretical Model of Behavior Change: assumes that behavior change involves progress through six stages of change; understanding what stage your user is in is very important: is s/he ready to change?

The behavioral design guidelines for service designers: suggestions in pills

We understood that we are predictably irrational human beings and because of that the behavioral science approach can give grounded and consistent explanations to the research of service design, especially when it comes to sustainability and social issues.

Having said that, how can service designers take advantage of behavioral science in their practice? As follows, you can find some suggestions coming out from our research.

As we mentioned in the premise, behavioral design doesn’t drive the project flow in all its phases, but it’s a different perspective we can bring within the service design project. It represents a lens we can use to look at humans with their unique features, giving consistency to the qualitative analysis and thus building the service design strategy. Being a service designer is a unique opportunity to adopt the lens of behavioral science: taking advantage of the system of a service we can better grasp the dynamics of a target behavior.

“As behavioral designers we don’t design all of it, we need to prioritize which are the areas with the biggest impact. Service designers instead can manage all the flow.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

But what are these peculiar moments in which to employ the lens of behavioral design?

The behavioral science lens during the service design journey

💊 How to apply the behavioral science during the service design research

The first important moment to employ the behavioral lens is during the research phase, of course. You are supposed to tackle the problem highlighting evidences and hypotheses to express solutions, avoiding any assumptions. But when it comes to people and relationships there is no prepackaged formula, it is necessary to start understanding the context from scratch every time.

Therefore, it is absolutely desirable to revise those models that we have previously listed along with the typical tools of service design: in this way behavior journeys are welcome to analyze motivations, capability and opportunities (COM-B model) for each phase of the experience of the target users, together with their influencers and social determinants. Journeys and behavior flows can be adapted to highlight blockers and enablers; empathy maps are useful to understand what customers feel, pain or gain; finally there are several deck cards, provided by different agencies, in which biases and heuristics are cataloged. At the same time it is necessary to maintain a systemic vision, not only focusing on the actions of the individual users, but also analyzing their entire ecosystem; the systemic approach of behavioral design lies precisely in understanding this aspect: we not only influence each other, but we are also suggested by the environment around us (trends, innovation, technology, …).

“It’s the environment that influences those decisions that we also have to track.”

Quote from a behavioral scientist

So this is the moment when you can give free space to your research and use the analysis tools in an original way (co-creation sessions are fundamental in order to select and eventually set internal tools); don’t give yourself limits and have fun.

💊 Once the research is done, behavioral science suggests you the interventions you can undertake

As explained above, the research done on the context of application will allow us to obtain different results: areas of opportunities, users’ enablers and blockers, bias and heuristics. It is now that the scientific studies that underlie behavioral design will permit us to come up with interventions that must be followed in a precise manner.

For each identified bias or blockers, there are groups of interventions that have been studied and selected to unblock that specific problem. For example: try to provide data of comparing behaviors from peers, friends or neighbors (Social norms interventions) to people that tend to pay more attention to specific patterns or information because of their experienced beliefs and actions. Or again, since familiar situations are typically processed in an automatic way, arranging personalized feedback can prompt people to reflect on their unconscious actions (Feedback and monitoring interventions).

As a concrete support to this phase there are several tools that can facilitate the selection of these solutions:

intervention cards to be used in combination with the behavioral factors deck cards previously mentioned;
the Behavioral Wheel is a working framework that allows you to keep under control the COM-B model and the spheres of interventions;
the BCT Taxonomy website (made along with an app) funded by the UK’s Medical Research Council, in which reliable taxonomies of interventions for behavioral change have been cataloged and clustered.

This is the phase that precedes the real design and development phase.

“Really follow the frameworks, models and theories that we have on our plate, because if you deviate, it’s less likely that your solution is going to work. So the science at this point plays a key role, it is a really useful tool, because it allows us, as practitioners, to increase the likelihood that we will cause behavior change.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

💊 Target the change by spreading several behavioral interventions within the project

To make the change effective, identify systems of interventions that can be spread along the user journey and with the interaction of different touchpoints: one punctual intervention alone will be hardly effective, while combining physical and digital solutions over the journey will make the difference. Create a sort of narrative, finding the right mix of interventions and adding them in the correct time along the experience. Remember that every behavior is a chain of actions and reactions (“before” is normally when you can prevent the behavior, while “after” is when you can arrange moments of reflections or feedback).

“You need to understand where the best moment to place an intervention is and generally that’s not in one place. Often it’s in multiple places, because the behaviors just build over time. And usually one kind of intervention is not enough to change the entire behavior around. So I usually say that you need to find 1–2–3 key moments in time where it’s really critical.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

💊 Behavioral design is energy conservative

The design process is long and demanding, as it represents the change towards new habits and behaviors; identify the real key points of impact from the very beginning. Behavioral change is not quick: as designers we have to identify the real problem we need to tackle and select the key behaviors that will enable the desired change. Remember to spend time to prepare clients that they will not get immediate results: try to structure the outcomes so that they can see positive gains toward the design process.

“It’s all about figuring out where’s the biggest impact that we can make and just hyper focusing on that point.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

💊 Change the client not only the user

During the whole design process, involve your client as much as possible with moments of discussions and workshops, trying to establish a relational mutual practice. Changing users’ behaviors can not really take hold unless there is a change in the service providers as well. For this reason it is really important to schedule meetings and share moments with the clients in order to create alignment during the whole process (if there is little time, try to meet your clients at least at the beginning, during the insight stage, and at the pilot stage: here they should be really involved!).

“I think that the company needs to be part of the entire process. They have to be fully engaged with these, because there is a bit of an ethical aspect as well: you are going to use people and imprint a change, so they might be fully aware of it.”

Quote from a behavioral designer

Conclusions

This is a proposal for a list of practical guidelines about the approach of behavioral science in service design process: it started from understanding that the project research must be approached in a craft manner, while science has to be used rigorously when applying the solutions; a single intervention is not enough to impress the change, yet the relevant moments of the project must be identified: behavioral design is highly demanding in terms of time and resources, you cannot risk directing efforts in the wrong way. Lastly, it is crucial to always inform the client during all the steps!

This document aims to be a starting point for the systematization of the practice of behavioral science, which should become more and more integrated within design disciplines, especially when dealing with services and complex systems and particularly when it comes to sustainability projects.

We have therefore come to the end of this document. Thanks to the experts who have dedicated time and energy to answer our questions, making sure that our research materializes. And a special dedication to those who trust in people’s potential and in those desires, behaviors and actions we can put together in place for a better future.

Please do not hesitate to contact us (info@servicedesigntools.org) if you have other information, if you are aware of special tools or applications, or if you have had experience in sustainability-themed projects.

**Inside behavioral science: an insight lens for service designers**

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