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. (Read more about this in Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey’s book, Immunity to Change.)
There’s often a mismatch between what people say they want and what they actually do.
Successful product organizations understand that intention and motivation aren’t enough. Some of the world’s largest and most design-focused businesses have teams dedicated to closing the gap between what people want and what they do. They have teams exclusively focused on usability and user experience. They have behavioral science departments, psychometricians, researchers, and relationships with universities — a slew of incredible resources.
What if, like most people, you don’t work for an organization with these resources? You will probably be left to figure out behavioral product design on your own (or if you’re lucky, with trusted colleagues). As you research methods to help people…
