A New Design Model That Helps People Change Their Lives
‘Glide-Nudge-Challenge’ uses behavioral psychology to encourage and support users
Authors: Sarita Parikh, Cynthia Parshall, Brittany Schiesel
Let’s say you design products to help people make meaningful changes in their lives — not one-and-done, cross-off-my-to-do-list goals, but goals that require sustained effort to come to fruition. Some of these goals are practical — say, maintaining an exercise routine or saving for retirement. Other goals are deeply rooted in people’s souls — say, earning an academic degree or sustaining a meditation practice.
If you’ve spent time as a product designer, you’ve probably come to understand that when people have goals, there’s often a mismatch between what people say they want and what they actually do. People can feel strongly about achieving their goals but then they struggle with the day-to-day effort. It’s tough to sustain motivation on a long-term goal.
Spend a few seconds thinking about this gap between intention and action, and you’ll come up with a slew of examples: healthy eating, exercise, retirement savings, meditation, and academic persistence, among other things. Even cardiac patients who have nearly died from poor health habits struggle to sustain healthier lifestyles…
