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Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics
A new wave of products is helping people change their behavior and daily routines, whether it’s exercising more (Jawbone Up), taking control of their finances (HelloWallet), or organizing their email (Mailbox). This practical guide shows you how to design these types of products for users seeking to take action and achieve specific goals. Stephen Wendel, HelloWallet’s head researcher, takes you step-by-step through the process of applying behavioral economics and psychology to the practical problems of product design and development. Using a combination of lean and agile development methods, you’ll learn a simple iterative approach for identifying target users and behaviors, building the product, and gauging its effectiveness. Discover how to create easy-to-use products to help people make positive changes.
391 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
250 people are currently reading
3888 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Wendel
6 books30 followersDr. Wendel is a behavioral scientist who studies how digital products can help individuals manage their money more effectively. He currently serves as the Head of Behavioral Science at Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research. At Morningstar, he leads a team of behavioral scientists and practitioners to conduct original research on savings and investing behavior, applies behavioral insights to Morningstar’s products and services, and frequently speaks with the media and industry groups on these topics.
Stephen has authored three books on applied behavioral science: Designing for Behavior Change (November 2013), Improving Employee Benefits (September 2014), and Spiritual Design (September 2019). Outside of work, he is also the Founder and Chair of the non-profit Action Design Network, which helps over 10,000 practitioners apply behavioral research to product development through an annual conference and monthly events in ten cities across the United States.
Stephen holds a BA from U.C. Berkeley, a Master’s from Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he analyzed the dynamics of behavioral change over time. He has two wonderful kids, who don’t care about behavioral science at all.
Stephen has authored three books on applied behavioral science: Designing for Behavior Change (November 2013), Improving Employee Benefits (September 2014), and Spiritual Design (September 2019). Outside of work, he is also the Founder and Chair of the non-profit Action Design Network, which helps over 10,000 practitioners apply behavioral research to product development through an annual conference and monthly events in ten cities across the United States.
Stephen holds a BA from U.C. Berkeley, a Master’s from Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he analyzed the dynamics of behavioral change over time. He has two wonderful kids, who don’t care about behavioral science at all.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
December 17, 2013
This book should be on the desk of every product designer and innovator. It is a thoughtful guidebook without all the fluff and impractical advice of academic texts. Designing for Behavior Change is well researched and well written.
July 29, 2018
Started off with a couple of concepts that were new to me. I’ve made a lot of highlights during the first 150 pages but after those pages the book turned south. A more condensed version would be welcomed!
October 8, 2017
Book covers how the mind makes decision, how to design products that leverage that knowledge, and how to test and refine those product over time. Author believes that behavior occurs only when three elements converge at the same moment: motivation, ability, and a trigger. Author provides a step-by-step process for designing, implementing, and testing the product by these elements.
Introduced process in this book entails four phases:
1- Understand how the mind decides to act and what that means for behavior change.
2- Discover the right behaviors to change, given your goals and your user’s goals.
3- Design the product itself around that behavior.
4- Refine the product’s impact based on careful measurement and analysis.
https://www.nirandfar.com/wp-content/...
Book is useful for web designers, software developers, product managers, and UX designers.
Introduced process in this book entails four phases:
1- Understand how the mind decides to act and what that means for behavior change.
2- Discover the right behaviors to change, given your goals and your user’s goals.
3- Design the product itself around that behavior.
4- Refine the product’s impact based on careful measurement and analysis.
https://www.nirandfar.com/wp-content/...
Book is useful for web designers, software developers, product managers, and UX designers.
October 6, 2020
This book offers a very useful framework for applying behavior sciences in design work, and the CREATE acronym is something I'll definitely get value from every day. The reason I'm giving a lower score is I don't think the editing is very elegant. I feel like it could be a much shorter book, with better examples, less repetition, and better organized chapters.
July 8, 2022
I have been seriously living under a rock being totally clueless that such a field guide for behavior change even existed. Very few books do justice to the topic and this one is really a 'field guide' as it provides concrete steps rather than just theory. The book itself is a pretty intense read, more like academia rather than casual but the amount of insights that the reader is able to get, alone makes it worth it.
November 30, 2020
Overall this is a useful book that lays out structure and processes for what can otherwise be chaotic. As other reviewers have mentioned, the book is longer than necessary, at times dense, and could be better organized. I also felt Wendel downplayed audience segmentation and the challenges associated with determining benchmarks for sufficient/meaningful change and that he was too dismissive of established behavioral theories outside of what can be found in behavioral economics. Those downsides make this book less than 5 stars for me, but I'm still giving it 4 stars because it's a practical guidebook that fills a gap for behavioral scientists like me who work outside of academia.
January 1, 2014
This book needed to be written.
The existing works on behavior change are dense and while they do a phenomenal job detailing the nuance of how the brain works they spend less time and have less interest in turning those into applicable concepts.
Roger Martin describes the knowledge funnel progressing from mystery, to heuristics, to algorithm. Prior to this work designing for behavior change was firmly in the heuristics category, because of this work it is very closely boarding on algorithm (applicable by anyone-- provided they've done some pre-requisite reading). If you've read up on the subject you'll be covering familiar ground but with a clarity geared toward the "what next of design"
I appreciate the care the author spent on academic rigor and the integration with agile processes and methodologies. I highly recommend this book for designers and project managers alike.
One of the weaknesses of the book however is how little it covers habit formation and the social dynamics of our behavior. But every book needs scope and these were well worth the tradeoffs.
The existing works on behavior change are dense and while they do a phenomenal job detailing the nuance of how the brain works they spend less time and have less interest in turning those into applicable concepts.
Roger Martin describes the knowledge funnel progressing from mystery, to heuristics, to algorithm. Prior to this work designing for behavior change was firmly in the heuristics category, because of this work it is very closely boarding on algorithm (applicable by anyone-- provided they've done some pre-requisite reading). If you've read up on the subject you'll be covering familiar ground but with a clarity geared toward the "what next of design"
I appreciate the care the author spent on academic rigor and the integration with agile processes and methodologies. I highly recommend this book for designers and project managers alike.
One of the weaknesses of the book however is how little it covers habit formation and the social dynamics of our behavior. But every book needs scope and these were well worth the tradeoffs.
December 14, 2017
A good book with surface level behavioral science. It's interesting to see scientific findings being applied and blended into the design process to shape behavior. If you've read Thinking Fast and Slow or Nudge, or you are familiar with BJ Fogg's behavior model you'll find a lot of them in this book.
I found his CREATE Action Funnel (7 stages of making actions) very useful, and reasonable. It was also interesting to see how the model works within a context which he describes it as being made up of the user, the environment, and the action. I wish he had included more examples or analysis of different products to make his cases stronger.
The book could be way shorter than this as I found repeated contents throughout the book. Also, I hoped to see more of ethical side of designing for behavior change, and how these models are being misused to make addictive products. There was only one or two paragraph about this issue.
I found his CREATE Action Funnel (7 stages of making actions) very useful, and reasonable. It was also interesting to see how the model works within a context which he describes it as being made up of the user, the environment, and the action. I wish he had included more examples or analysis of different products to make his cases stronger.
The book could be way shorter than this as I found repeated contents throughout the book. Also, I hoped to see more of ethical side of designing for behavior change, and how these models are being misused to make addictive products. There was only one or two paragraph about this issue.
May 15, 2017
It was fun to see some "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Nudge" lessons applied in the context of product design, but there was a lot of overlap with other product design and UX literature I've read, which made the book feel longer than it needed to be.
August 15, 2023
📕 Why (Not) to read this book (Target Audience)
Part 1 of the book is a great introduction to How the Mind Works. In part 2 the blueprint is focused heavenly on behavior change for products, and less relevant for behavior change in an organization.
👀 How this book changed my daily live (Takeaways)
Start accepting our humanity
1. We’re limited beings
2. Our minds use shortcuts(aka heuristics)
3. We’re of two minds
4. Decision and behavior are deeply affected by context
5. We can cleverly and thoughtfully design a context
⁉ Spoiler Alerts (Highlights)
For someone to take a conscious action
1. The person responds to a Cue that starts their thinking about the action.
2. Their intuitive mind automatically Reacts at an intuitive level to the idea.
3. Their conscious mind Evaluates the idea, especially in terms of costs and benefits.
4. They check whether they have the Ability to act—if they know what to do, have what they need, and believe they can succeed.
5. They determine whether the Timing is right for action—especially whether or not the action is urgent.
6. They aren’t turned off by a prior negative Experience—that overwhelms the otherwise clear benefits.
Part 1 of the book is a great introduction to How the Mind Works. In part 2 the blueprint is focused heavenly on behavior change for products, and less relevant for behavior change in an organization.
👀 How this book changed my daily live (Takeaways)
Start accepting our humanity
1. We’re limited beings
2. Our minds use shortcuts(aka heuristics)
3. We’re of two minds
4. Decision and behavior are deeply affected by context
5. We can cleverly and thoughtfully design a context
⁉ Spoiler Alerts (Highlights)
For someone to take a conscious action
1. The person responds to a Cue that starts their thinking about the action.
2. Their intuitive mind automatically Reacts at an intuitive level to the idea.
3. Their conscious mind Evaluates the idea, especially in terms of costs and benefits.
4. They check whether they have the Ability to act—if they know what to do, have what they need, and believe they can succeed.
5. They determine whether the Timing is right for action—especially whether or not the action is urgent.
6. They aren’t turned off by a prior negative Experience—that overwhelms the otherwise clear benefits.
July 16, 2019
The existing works on behavior change are dense and while they do a phenomenal job detailing the nuance of how the brain works they spend less time and have less interest in turning those into applicable concepts.
Roger Martin describes the knowledge funnel progressing from mystery, to heuristics, to algorithm. Prior to this work designing for behavior change was firmly in the heuristics category, because of this work it is very closely boarding on algorithm (applicable by anyone-- provided they've done some pre-requisite reading). If you've read up on the subject you'll be covering familiar ground but with a clarity geared toward the "what next of design"
I appreciate the care the author spent on academic rigor and the integration with agile processes and methodologies. I highly recommend this book for designers and project managers alike.
One of the weaknesses of the book however is how little it covers habit formation and the social dynamics of our behavior. But every book needs scope and these were well worth the tradeoffs
Roger Martin describes the knowledge funnel progressing from mystery, to heuristics, to algorithm. Prior to this work designing for behavior change was firmly in the heuristics category, because of this work it is very closely boarding on algorithm (applicable by anyone-- provided they've done some pre-requisite reading). If you've read up on the subject you'll be covering familiar ground but with a clarity geared toward the "what next of design"
I appreciate the care the author spent on academic rigor and the integration with agile processes and methodologies. I highly recommend this book for designers and project managers alike.
One of the weaknesses of the book however is how little it covers habit formation and the social dynamics of our behavior. But every book needs scope and these were well worth the tradeoffs
September 20, 2019
This book provides a framework for building products that help people take action. For a person to take a specific action, there are five preconditions that must be met: cue (external or internal), reaction (to the idea), evaluation (assessment of how hard the action is to take), ability (to act), and timing (urgency). Together these make up the C-R-E-A-T-E action funnel. Products can take people through these five stages using brute force, by building habits, or by shifting the burden of work to the product instead of the user (preferred).
Develop a clear understanding of the outcome (real world impact), the actor (users), and the action early in the design process.
Break the target action into discrete steps, which can be tailored to the user's level of expertise and simplified to reduce the work required for the user.
Iteratively refine the product through user testing. Define clear metrics for the outcome and target action, measure the impact, find obstacles to the impact, identify and prioritize potential solutions, and test each major change.
Develop a clear understanding of the outcome (real world impact), the actor (users), and the action early in the design process.
Break the target action into discrete steps, which can be tailored to the user's level of expertise and simplified to reduce the work required for the user.
Iteratively refine the product through user testing. Define clear metrics for the outcome and target action, measure the impact, find obstacles to the impact, identify and prioritize potential solutions, and test each major change.
April 11, 2020
It's really really amazing!
This book describe (sometimes very detailed) how we can design behavior change. For that Wendel provide us a Funil to create action. That we can use for our application, solution, services to identify distractions and problems.
Stephen is very detailist each chapter, and sometimes tired a liite. I recommend to you like UX or Product Owner. Use this book together with another, Amy Bucher (Engaged) and Validating Product Ideas (Tomer Sharon) for design and validate ideas for change behavior.
This book describe (sometimes very detailed) how we can design behavior change. For that Wendel provide us a Funil to create action. That we can use for our application, solution, services to identify distractions and problems.
Stephen is very detailist each chapter, and sometimes tired a liite. I recommend to you like UX or Product Owner. Use this book together with another, Amy Bucher (Engaged) and Validating Product Ideas (Tomer Sharon) for design and validate ideas for change behavior.
January 18, 2021
I read the second edition (2020). Wendel is absolutely clear in modeling an approach for behavior change and I appreciated knowing his vision about the field of behavioral science. He uses lots of examples all the time, and that helps a lot both in the understanding and in making the reading enjoyable. The subject behavior change is inherently complex, but the reading is pretty much clear and engaged me until the last page. I intend to follow his frameworks by the book in a future professional project and see how it will work in practice.
May 5, 2018
The book contains a lot of useful insights on app design and measurement (actually, one can see that the author really likes the measurement part more) – there's literally lots of knowledge packed in this book. It is, however, written in a very thick, uninteresting way. Sometimes it was extremely boring to read it, you actually had to force yourself to go through it. Nevertheless, I can definitely recommend it to anyone, who is designing applications.
August 16, 2021
The content of this book is useful, it hands you a clear methodology on how to design for behaviour change. That said, I found reading it a very tedious experience since EVERYTHING was spelled out. As well, a more structured writing approach in which the reader gets an indication of WHY a certain chapter is relevant and WHY this specific type of information is handed over could help me stay motivated. Especially half-way it took great effort and discipline for me to keep reading.
March 27, 2021
Unlike the first version, in this version, the author has paid less attention to how people make decisions and instead has tried to focus on how to use the principles of decision making and behavior in product design.
He also talks about how to test a product that try to change a behavior and how to make a team for this kind of products.
He also talks about how to test a product that try to change a behavior and how to make a team for this kind of products.
January 21, 2025
Forget what I’ve said about any other UX book because THIS is the best one I’ve read. It’s just what I needed to face my hardest project to date. Marked as read but I’ll be referencing and coming back to this again and again for the next few months.
February 4, 2019
It's one of the books I always recommend when it comes to cognitive experience design principals in UX, absolutely a must read.
November 12, 2022
Excellent book, really academic and powerfull
November 28, 2022
further reading section
February 7, 2023
中文翻譯相當可怕，讓人分辨不出到底是內容難懂、還是譯者根本不知道自己在說什麼。
May 6, 2024
Good intro book for behavior science with practical worksheets.
Examples are a bit product-management heavyy.
Examples are a bit product-management heavyy.
July 25, 2024
great book
October 4, 2024
Information packed but very veeeery long.
March 31, 2014
I received an electronic version of this book for free on LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.
While this book focused on the how and why of processes to design products that can help behavior change, I also found it helpful to better understand behavior change in myself. I now better understand why some things that seemed logical did not work and now I have new principles to try in order to better achieve success.
This is a book that I would have enjoyed as a textbook in college. I think it would complement a class on User Interface Design as well as any Human Resource class.
This book was written in a format that felt more like a dialog instead of a dry collection of data on a topic. For me, this made it easier to read and understand. I really appreciated the “On a Napkin” summary section at the ends of the chapters. I felt the style in which they were written made them more helpful than many other types of summaries I have read in textbooks. I was excited to see the appendix that had “Resources to Learn More” which gave a little information about each resource, such as the topic specifics and why it might be helpful.
I read this book on a Kindle Paperwhite. I liked how the footnote links would just show the data for that footnote on top of the page I was reading instead of taking me to another page that I had to back out of (unless I clicked on the option to go to the footnote page). However, there was one format feature that did not work well on my Paperwhite. There was a chart where different colors indicated different meanings. However, in black and white, there was no difference in shades, so I was unable to figure out what was what on the chart. The only other format oddity that stuck out to me was that the “y” at the end of “Appendix C. Bibliography” was on the second line by itself instead of pulling the whole word down with it to the next line.
This is definitely a book I want to keep around for future reading and reference, though I would prefer to have a physical copy, as that is more helpful to me for this type of book. I think that there is material in this book that could be useful to anyone studying behavior change.
While this book focused on the how and why of processes to design products that can help behavior change, I also found it helpful to better understand behavior change in myself. I now better understand why some things that seemed logical did not work and now I have new principles to try in order to better achieve success.
This is a book that I would have enjoyed as a textbook in college. I think it would complement a class on User Interface Design as well as any Human Resource class.
This book was written in a format that felt more like a dialog instead of a dry collection of data on a topic. For me, this made it easier to read and understand. I really appreciated the “On a Napkin” summary section at the ends of the chapters. I felt the style in which they were written made them more helpful than many other types of summaries I have read in textbooks. I was excited to see the appendix that had “Resources to Learn More” which gave a little information about each resource, such as the topic specifics and why it might be helpful.
I read this book on a Kindle Paperwhite. I liked how the footnote links would just show the data for that footnote on top of the page I was reading instead of taking me to another page that I had to back out of (unless I clicked on the option to go to the footnote page). However, there was one format feature that did not work well on my Paperwhite. There was a chart where different colors indicated different meanings. However, in black and white, there was no difference in shades, so I was unable to figure out what was what on the chart. The only other format oddity that stuck out to me was that the “y” at the end of “Appendix C. Bibliography” was on the second line by itself instead of pulling the whole word down with it to the next line.
This is definitely a book I want to keep around for future reading and reference, though I would prefer to have a physical copy, as that is more helpful to me for this type of book. I think that there is material in this book that could be useful to anyone studying behavior change.
November 27, 2017
Well! if your (in UX) looking for process or approach to craft successful products/ services to change and facilitate human behavior/ habits, this book will give you some good direction - it takes you through from how human mind & behavior works to defining/ designing environment, interface design and refining etc., so its about why and how part. its well researched.
Besides, I felt this book is little lengthier and repetitive in some areas.
One can easily connect and leverage if you read some of these books Thinking, fast and slow, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness BJ Fogg behavior model, etc
Besides, I felt this book is little lengthier and repetitive in some areas.
One can easily connect and leverage if you read some of these books Thinking, fast and slow, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness BJ Fogg behavior model, etc
April 17, 2014
Designing for Behavior Change by Stephen Wendel
Stephen Wendel has developed an excellent and specific, detailed plan for designing products that will help people change their lives for the better. He identifies the target behavior, the new behavior and what is needed to make that happen. What sets this book apart is that he also examines obstacles to behavior change and develops methods to work around those obstacles. He also determines where to place that product to trigger its use. We of course see these items everywhere around us, e.g. runners wearing devices to measure physiological performance and thereby providing immediate, reinforcing feedback. Many of us have different apps on our tablets/laptops to trigger relaxation, better organization, and other behaviors. Wendel's plan is up-to-date or ahead of its time, personalized, and again, specific and detailed. Recommended for anyone looking for new ways to change their own or others' behavior. Wendel combines research knowledge with the latest technology for a whole product.
I received free copy of this book from the publisher.
Stephen Wendel has developed an excellent and specific, detailed plan for designing products that will help people change their lives for the better. He identifies the target behavior, the new behavior and what is needed to make that happen. What sets this book apart is that he also examines obstacles to behavior change and develops methods to work around those obstacles. He also determines where to place that product to trigger its use. We of course see these items everywhere around us, e.g. runners wearing devices to measure physiological performance and thereby providing immediate, reinforcing feedback. Many of us have different apps on our tablets/laptops to trigger relaxation, better organization, and other behaviors. Wendel's plan is up-to-date or ahead of its time, personalized, and again, specific and detailed. Recommended for anyone looking for new ways to change their own or others' behavior. Wendel combines research knowledge with the latest technology for a whole product.
I received free copy of this book from the publisher.
January 25, 2015
I loved this book. It's packed full of resources and takes you from start to finish through the process of designing a behaviour change based product or service.
It's perfect to use as the blueprint for a project but even if you've ever thought you might want to design a product/service this book is a really fun exercise to get you thinking about just what it would look like and how you'd go about developing it.
It may just be the inspiration you need to get your ideas out of your head and into reality.
It's perfect to use as the blueprint for a project but even if you've ever thought you might want to design a product/service this book is a really fun exercise to get you thinking about just what it would look like and how you'd go about developing it.
It may just be the inspiration you need to get your ideas out of your head and into reality.
March 7, 2024
Behavioral product design is the new social product design.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews