Wicked behavioral design
FROM “GETTING THE IDEA RIGHT” TO “GETTING THE RIGHT IDEA”
We need a new conception of behavioral design—neither behavioral science (+ sticky notes and empathy) nor design (+ nudges), but one that elegantly incorporates elements of both disciplines. Calls for an integrative approach to complex problems and models describing a new problem space for design and behavioral science have begun to gain traction, but a true hybrid discipline has yet to be fully articulated. How might we integrate insights from behavioral science with a more generative, design-oriented mode of identifying, framing, and solving for wicked challenges? Accomplishing this will require a fundamental shift in perspective: from “getting the idea right,” or optimizing for known solutions in a stable system, to “getting the right idea,” by focusing more on the effective framing of problems before we even begin to solve for them, including questioning what counts as a problem in the first place. We suggest that this new conception of behavioral design—neither behavioral science (+ sticky notes and empathy) nor design (+ nudges), but one that elegantly incorporates elements of both disciplines—will require three radical recenterings and extensions:
Moving beyond “behavioral change” to embed behavioral insight into a wider set of human-centered challenges
Decoupling insights into human behavioral tendencies, obtained through behavioral science lab experiments, from the mode of inquiry used to identify and solve problems, and in which those insights have traditionally been applied
Using behavioral insights to inform and generate new, plausible approaches to complex adaptive systems problems, rather than as a filter to identify situations to which known findings apply