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Hi, I'm Dan Lockton from Brunel University in London and I'm going to offer you my take on Design for Persuasion: what I call Design with Intent - design that's intended to influence or result in certain user behaviour. 

Design inevitably influences our behaviour, whether intentionally or otherwise.

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But many examples we come across in everday life where design is used to influence our behaviour are rather 'anti-user', from ariport seating deliberately shaped so it's too uncomfortable to sit on...

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...to things which threaten to hurt us...

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...or damage our property...

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...or intimidate us into submission...

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...or interrupt the flow of what we want to do, like watching a movie we've paid for.

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In my research, though, I'm trying to use design to help people - specifically, to influence more sustainable user behaviour.

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So much of our environmental impact is really due to behavioural decisions - or the lack of them - that it's worth seeing if we can do something about it, through design. So that's the context for my research.

However, most of the design techniques - the patterns - could apply to lots of situations where you're trying to influence what users do - to interaction design in general, in fact.

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And patterns from lots of disciplines are relevant, from architecture and urban planning (this crossing is designed to channel pedestrians so they face oncoming traffic and perhaps make eye contact with drivers)...

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...to many areas of social, cognitive and behavioural psychology (here, Amazon's recommendation system very effectively uses social proof, which I know Richard'll be talking about later)...

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...to errorproofing techniques often found in health & safety, but also applicable in other situations such as the hotel door card here, which prevents you leaving your room lights on when you go out (saving the hotel money) and helps you remember where you left the card!

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Overall there are relevant patterns from a number of fields, and each provides a different 'worldview' of the problem.

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I'm up to about 50 patterns so far - there are more to come - but...

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...these have been valuable for running workshops with designers, seeing how useful the patterns are for inspiring different concepts...

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...in response to a variety of design briefs about influencing user behaviour.

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So far, the results suggest that having a semi-structured set of inspirational design patterns...

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...results in a wider variety of ideas and concepts than not having it, or having something overly prescriptive.

So that's how I envisage the patterns being used: early stages of the design process, generating concepts.

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Anyway, for this talk I'm going to focus on just the six patterns on your handout - do have a look now if you haven't already (http://research.danlockton.co.uk/DfP_handout_DanLockton.pdf ). There's nothing more special about these than any of the other patterns, they just seemed like they'd be quick and easy to explain to you today.

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So, Defaults. We all know that many users will leave things on the default setting and never investigate the others. So, make use of this.

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Or change the default from opt-in to opt-out. This is an application form from a UK building society which, by default, donates some of your interest to its charity scheme. Not only do you have to opt out if you don't want to do it, but it's worded in a rather rhetorical way: "Check this box if you would not like to make a big difference". I don't know the results, but I guess most people don't check the box.

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Segmentation and spacing: if you split a system up into parts, it influences how people can use it. Kind of obvious, of course...

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...it can make it easier for people to understand what to do - step-by-step - or help them measure their progress. Or, as with the benches shown on the card on your handout, it can mean that one user can't dominate.

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Framing is also obvvious: it's about giving users the frame of reference you want them to have. It could be about framing the problem differently, e.g. saving money or time rather than saving the environment.

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Or it could influence users' choices by giving them different comparison sets.

In this line of 'cakes', C looks the best because of its size.

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But when you see them in a different frame, C is mediocre. And there are other comparison factors now, like colour, that we didn't even consider before.

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We all know about giving users feedback - an important persuasive technique in itself. But feedforward - giving people previews or simulations of what effect different choices will have - can also be a powerful technique.

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Imagine if your electrical devices had a 'price label' display that showed you how much it would cost you to use them in different ways, at different times, etc. This is not that difficiult to do technologically.

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Can you use metaphors to influence users' behaviour? If people already understand how to use something or what it means, make your new system resemble it, and people may use it the same way.

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We're so used to some everyday metaphors, particularly in user interfaces, that it can be fun to play with them. This wall-mounted filing system is the 'New Folder' project from two students at the University of Applied Sciences Coburg (http://haseform.de/produkte/73.do ).

There's a danger of metaphors being stretched too far, beyond what you intend. Someone at a previous presentation mentioned a colleague who spent ages dragging dozens of file icons to one side of the screen to 'make more space on the disk'.

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You can also give users different options depending on what they've done.

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It could be a kind of 'reward', e.g. Instructables' website here lets users who are logged in use the interface in a different - more useful - way. Or it could be about giving users only the options you want them to have, based on their past actions, so different sets of options and choices 'route' users through your interface.

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Here's an example brief I was given by a group to whom I did a presentation earlier in the summer. Have a read and a bit of a think.

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So, as users move from a 'classroom environment'...

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...to the home...

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...however exciting it might seem initially to have more freedom - and she looks pretty excited about it...

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...other things start to get in the way. People's habits and routines when at home mean it can be difficult to get into a 'work' frame of mind.

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Members of the family might not always help, whether animals...

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...or children.

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So, very quickly, what do the patterns suggest?

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If we combined segmentation & spacing...

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...and simulation & feedforward (and it's often the case that combinations of patterns suggest good ideas)...

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...it might suggest...

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...something which clearly breaks the course up into manageable chunks, and lets people see how they're doing...

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...while also simulating what the outcomes might be if they change their behaviour, both 'good'...

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...and 'bad'. (Clearly this isn't a real interface, just an idea)

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Thinking about 'what you've done'...

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...would allow the software to tailor the questions and explanations to individual users, helping keep them engaged more like a 'real' teacher. Tailoring is one of BJ's original persuasive technology patterns, of course.

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This is an example of an early 1970s 'teaching machine' textbook which tried this kind of approach...

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...a kind of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' textbook, based on some of the work that people like BF Skinner and Don Bushnell did in this field.

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Thinking about metaphors, the metaphor of a classroom...

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...with other users present, even if only as 'classmates' around the periphery of the screen, with the ability to chat to each other or see the progress everyone's making, would be worth a try. This is actually one of the ideas the group decided to explore further, a kind of social networking interface modelled on a classroom metaphor.

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Framing could be applied in many ways here. Maybe the situation needs to be reframed from 'playing around on the internet' to something more serious. Or maybe it's the other way round: reframing it from being a serious, unfriendly, 'testing' context to something more fun and engaging - framing it a s a game, a challenge rather than an exam. Can you get users to think about it like this through its design?

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Defaults - maybe to lessen the likelhood of distraction you would have to opt in to having access to other websites while you're working on a course unit. You could choose to alter this, but most people will stay on the default setting.

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So - try applying some of these patterns to your own user behaviour problems and see what they inspire.

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And do have a look at the other patterns too - the URLs are on your handout. (http://designwithintent.co.uk ; http://3.ly/dwia ; http://3.ly/dwie ; http://3.ly/dwip ; http://3.ly/dwiv ; http://3.ly/dwic ; http://3.ly/dwis )

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OK - to wrap up, here's something slightly different to think about.

When you're designing to influence behaviour, how do you think about your users?

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Are they basically pinballs, to be pushed and pulled by your design, without thinking? Lots of safety-related design takes this approach.

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Or are they just looking for the easiest path, taking shortcuts, following biases and defaults, again without thinking too much? Design for usability often takes this approach, the 'Don't Make Me Think' idea.

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Or are they genuinely thoughtful, weighing up different behaviour choices and deciding what to do accordingly? Here you're trying to educate and inspire attitude change through what you design: actually persuading people. 

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Basically, bear this question in mind as you think about this field. Different users respond in different ways, and your modelling needs to account for that!

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Thanks for listening - I'd be very interested to hear any questions!