Ideo's Tim Brown on using design to change behaviour

Many large-scale phenomena are the sum of individual actions – sometimes millions or billions of them.

Apple’s recent celebration of 10 billion songs downloaded from iTunes represents 10 billion choices made by consumers to download a song rather than buy it in another format.

But what does it take to bring about such massive shifts in behavior? Are there approaches that businesses can use to influence behaviors on a micro level, and gain benefits on a macro one?

Tim Brown, CEO of design firm IDEO, tells me there are, and points to an emerging field, design for behavioural change, as a source of methods and tools.

Part of the challenge of designing for behavioral change involves the age-old question of incentives. Brown offered these tips on nudging people toward new behaviours:

1. CREATE SIMPLE DIGITAL TOOLS TO PROVIDE FEEDBACK. "Think of the iPhone app ‘Lose It,’ which allows mobile tracking of food intake," Brown says. "Or Google’s `PowerMeter,` which encourages communities to share energy-use data." Smart phone applications and Web-based software are inexpensive to create and deploy. Keep in mind, however, that such tools are only as good as the information they channel.

2. INVENT FOR TOMORROW’S CONSUMER, NOT TODAY’S. This can be hard to do, as consumer research tends to focus on current buying habits. Brown suggests that future desires might be best foreseen via playful brainstorming that’s slightly structured. Offer a design team some jumping-off points to fuel its imagination, rather than simply asking, "What will customers want 10 years from now?"

3. BE PATIENT WHEN MONITORING "SUCCESS." Mass behavior doesn’t change overnight. Sales and other metrics alone shouldn’t be used to judge innovation results. Brown offers an example from IDEO: Health Buddy, an at-home patient-monitoring system the firm created more than a decade ago.

"Recently, the (US Department of Veterans Affairs) found a 60 per cent drop in hospital admissions from 2003-2007. The thesis is that by asking patients about the state of their condition every day through a (device with a) very simple interface, the patient is more likely to do important things like check weight, take medication," Brown says.

IDEO didn’t expect such dramatic results after just three months or a year. The firm’s patience was rewarded only after many years of trials.

Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate