Behavior Change Design: Toward a Vision of Motivational Technology

Abstract

Changing behavior is a challenging and complex endeavor. For behavior change interventions to be meaningful, they must target behaviors that are clinically significant, address the right determinants that predict target behaviors, and be delivered in ways that dovetail with the characteristics of the intended recipients, their culture, and their context. Maximizing our ability to effect change requires an iterative, systematic process that integrates theory and evidence at every step, from problem identification and framing through to solution design, implementation, and evaluation. Behavior change design methods form a “virtuous spiral” in which empirical evidence is used to create an ever-improving design methodology that is applied to improve human well-being, and whereby rigorous implementation insights feed back into the advancement of behavior change science. This chapter provides a framework for accomplishing this advancement.