15 thoughts on “Week 2: A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design”
Broadly speaking, I agree with Fogg that many attempts to design products and services fail because the designer has failed to think from the user’s perspective; lacking an understanding of their motivation and desired outcome, let alone the optimal path connecting the two. We see examples of this in our day to day interactions with products – the complexity of home electronics, or the focus on visual rather than interaction design in many websites. Fogg encourages us to carefully consider the ways in which we ask people to interact – which is a good thing.
Foggs perspective reminded me of some of the simpler books on usability testing by people like Steve Krug, Seth Godin and Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. These texts encourage us to understand users and their priorities as a prerequisite for designing an optimal experience for them.
Foggs model offers a simple model that encourages the designer to understand the user’s level and type of motivation, the action to be performed and the ability of the user to perform the action – as well as some external factor or trigger that begins the path to action. I particularly liked his highlighting of the interplay between motivation and ability – it’s good to be reminded that making something easy isn’t useful unless that something is aligned with a task that the user is motivated to complete. Similarly, a highly motivated user is not an opportunity to make the completion of a task more difficult than it should be – this is important; again, we just don’t see this in many of the things we see around us – many product designers assume that ownership/engagement is the same thing as motivation, which takes the focus off usability.
I do however, disagree with Fogg that this is a genuinely new way of thinking about human behaviour. It is perhaps a slightly updated way to think about the performance of tasks, and the design of interactions between people and objects – but the simplicity of the model doesn’t (from my admittedly limited understanding of behavioural economics and neuroscience) really address the complexity of the decision making process that happens when we are confronted with choice/complex environments. Again, that’s not to say the model isn’t a useful way to approach the design of systems in a more user-centered way.
FBM:
simple structure to understand human behavior in order to lead the will to create and work from various temptations.
I realized that this simple systematic method, we can create a real time monitor that helps people daily success. There are factors to operate the target behavior. These are motivation, ability, and trigger. Depending on individual condition and environments, sometimes, these factors are vary to affect on people’s behaviors. For instances, high motivation but low ability will bring an insufficient result on target behavior. This is because we are naturally managed to simple tasks, successfully. So here, for people, we need to think up a simple, easy tool, and method for people to reach a target behavior. This works for a team project, as well. As a team, people are approaching a goal with similarities that team’s successful result. People need to change behaviors in a similar way. There will need a proper trigger that can be facilitator, spark, and signal that leads a clear concept for a team. We need to understand how each main factors and subcomponents work properly. By FBM’s useful aspects, with a portable, handy, and prompt media device, we can trigger many behaviors, immediately. Surround features, environmental elements attempt people’s behavior that change a target behaviors. We can expect that using FBM structure with simple device that gives people a shortcut way to accomplish their target behavior, readily.
I enjoy this framework simply because it is so simple and explicit. I would agree with Paul in that there is nothing particularly new or revolutionary about this model, however it is nice to have it rationalized in such a clean way, as is done here, and I think it will function as a useful tool for our specific uses in this class.
I really liked that he’s included “Brain Cycles” as an ability factor, and says “But for the most part, we overestimate how much everyday people want to think. Thinking deeply or thinking in new ways can be difficult.” I understand all too well, considering the state that the previous reading of Self-Experimentation left me in.
I second Fred; this framework for understanding persuasive behaviors has a nice simplicity to it. This is a good framework for persuading users to complete actions. Fogg describes three behavioral factors that define persuasion: he or she: 1. must be sufficiently motivated, 2. have the ability to perform the behavior, and 3. be triggered to perform the behavior. I slightly disagree with second condition. I think we can be persuaded to do something even if don’t feel that we can perform. Fogg is trying capture the split second when we are persuaded to act, but I believe that there is an other cognitive process that can occur on the way to second condition that is inspired by the first condition motivation.
The sub-condition is willingness to learning. The willingness to learn a behavior is different from the person knowing they have the ability to perform. I guess you can say that the person is persuaded to do the task because even if they don’t know how to do it in that instance in the back of their mind they believe they can eventually learn; which would still fall under the constraints of the second condition. You could also argue that willingness to learn is a motivation, but I see learning is a separate cognitive process then motivation and competence.
Fogg discusses the fact that there are different levels of ability in his web email response example. He says that in order to make the task more usable make the task easier to do. He also talks about how motivation and ability interplay to increase or decrease persuasion. I see that interplay as the push to learn something; that there is a communication between the motivation and ability. Learning is a desire so it’s a motivation but it is also a state of ability. It is also apparent that sometimes people can be persuaded to do things that they are not sure they can learn or understand—that’s where great discoveries come from.
I agree with much of what’s been already said here. Fogg lays out a very clear, understandable model for us to use as a foundation for our persuasive designs. I appreciated his clarification in the beginning that persuasion here is “the attempt to influence behaviors not attitudes.” It will be interesting to see how differing use cases fit with this model. For example, how does it function when comparing systems designed for a select few as opposed to systems designed for the masses. Also, I’m curious how this model works in terms of the varying stages of the design process. In other words, how does the point in our stage of design affect the model and the design itself. More specifically, if we’re producing a minimum viable product, we might want high barriers of entry to target certain use cases and filter out unwanted ones for the time being. I guess it’s important to remember this model is a common starting point to be used and then built upon depending upon the specific situation.
On another note, Fogg’s mention of street lights made me think of the recent implementation in Los Angeles (and some spots in NY, possibly elsewhere) of the number countdown on crosswalk signals. I’m not sure if this would be considered a “facilitator” or not, but I know it made the experience of driving around LA and handling traffic signals much more pleasant and tolerable. It eliminated a great deal of uncertainty, tension, and stress that had taken root in the LA driving experience and was often the cause for bad, unsafe driving. It was a simple addition of information for the user (I can’t speak on the city’s exact motivations, probably safety) but it made a huge difference for me and I think subconsciously improved my overall driving behavior.
The most exhilarating aspect of this article was the push towards a focus on the human being (I hate the words user/consumer. Is there a better word?). Although this sentiment has been echoed before by the likes of Don Norman and more recently by Seth Godin, Tim Brown etc, I really appreciate the methodology supporting the idea that is B.J Fogg’s contribution. In isolating the three factors, namely, motivation, ability & triggers, he has simplified a thread of behavioural psychology and made it conducive to work into design strategy. This article made me think of my own struggle with nutritional discipline and weight loss. I had the gym membership, the yoga groupon, the calorie tracking app, the fitness buddy app, the visualisation board, the motivation (mostly pain from shame), and the ability (does it get simpler than healthy home delivered meals?) but the article made me realise how ineffective my trigger is. I’ve always wondered why it was so different when I was an actress. My pain/fear motivation of not looking terrible on camera might be much stronger than my present motivation of pleasure (“It would be nice to fit again”), but the biggest difference is in the trigger. In Bombay, and specifically in the media, the trigger was the culture of fitness-obsession. You couldn’t travel, watch tv, turn on your computer or your phone without a reference to fitness, body, weight, or just a snapshot of a designer’s latest creation that looks like it was deliberately made so that only one half of you could fit into it. As a student, the cultural trigger is towards a completely different kind of behaviour. I realised I was unconsciously waiting for the cultural trigger to kick in. Instead, a whole new kind of motivation & trigger is called for.
This article also got me thinking about rural health. Being able to see through the FBM lens made it easier to spot the gaps. In trying to answer the questions of why villagers didn’t act upon urgent information about their health, I generally perceived it as a lack of a system which didn’t co-ordinate the various efforts on the ground. While that was true, being able to define it as a problem of ability (villagers had information but had no transport options to get to the hospitals) and also of trigger allowed me to explore solutions that I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. For eg, if we assume the motivation to treat a sick spouse is high, and the transport option is given, then could the offer of free meals at the hospital for the family act as a trigger?
This model has gone beyond the “user centric design” line that has become so popular and created a simple but effective way of approaching persuasive design. Is it the whole story? No. Critics might call it too simplistic, but then at the core, human behaviour can be so ridiculously simple.
This reading was interesting. A few things that stuck to me:
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don’t think you’re weird, you’re living badly.
It was a sad reminder that, being healthy is abnormal. Doing things we were born to do upon coming into the world is denied. But I wouldn’t go as far as the writer does to say that our ‘social antibodies’ aren’t up to speed with our addictions. It could be my own belief in that there is a homeostasis in all things, but also some of the examples the writer gives come across as a little whiny to me.
Not wanting the distracting internet to follow you everywhere you go doesn’t sound eccentric to me. It just sounds like a personal preference being pushed onto me. And his comment on the bottom with the iPad (as a non-iPad user) really just irritates me. I feel like he’s come down to picking and choosing which examples suit him at this point. Overall, I don’t disagree with his thesis, but I’m not really stomaching the way he’s presented his facts.
I guess that brings a good point of how far does ‘health’ decide what should be ‘normal’ or even ‘healthy’. There is psychological health and there is physical health. Admittedly, I don’t think I’d be making a strong argument in saying ‘having the internet makes you happy = makes you healthy = makes you healthy’ But I do generally feel like the human race is more adaptable than he presumes. Else, we’ll be extinct sooner than we hope.
This is the right response….why can’t I delete my other comment???
Having taken psychology in my undergrad, this model definitely felt like another variation other models I’ve learned. It was helpful for me to draw it out following along, even though it was straightforward and common sensical.
But one thing I didn’t think that was as intuitive was the idea of a trigger. Thinking back to my summer internship at an ad agency, I can now think of many many instances of triggers. The whole model of (motivation + ability) + trigger = persuation made me think about an example in our Design for Unicef Class.
Uganda is one the countries in the world that has very successfully reduced their HIV infected population by embracing their campaigns (motivation), granting access to protection and sex-ed (ability) and with campaigns, knowledge, and safe sex, their numbers shot down from 30% of the population to 5%.
In context of self-documentation, this reading makes me think that, at least in my experience, my biggest hindrance in self-documentation lies in the ability to do so. It’s consuming, and figuring out qualitative parameters and measures is often challenging. I’m curious to see how this behavior model will influence my future designs, especially in self-quantification.
Trigger –> Motivation + Ability = Performed Behavior
this is essentially fogg’s self-title behavioral model (FBM). fogg points out that motivation and ability must go hand in hand in for a user to perform a desired behavior. simple enough — but i think this is an important basic thought to keep in mind when designing a tool — no matter how simple the design might be without proper motivation the user might not complete the task, just as no matter how motivated the user if the cannot operate the system the task goes undone as well. and fogg demonstrates that a 3rd factor is needed in this system — triggers in a word are catalysts for user’s of to reach their desired goals, and triggers can take on three different methods of approach as well ::
1. sparks
– inspire a motivational element
2. facilitators
– facilitate the ability of the user to perform the behavior
3. signals
– reminder
in FBM there are 3 motivator frameworks fogg details ::
1. pleasure/pain
– immediate goals/desires
2. hope/fear
– long term goals/desires
3. social acceptance/rejection
– community perception
concerning ability fogg sums up human behavior as thus “people are fundamental lazy.” by designing for simplicity people’s ability to perform a task is greatly improved. fogg details time, money, social pressure as all contraints for designing for simplicity. but the most powerful and elemental in my opinion is routine — just route behavior is often a key factor to encourage good behavior.
in all, i agree with fogg. i don’t believe his FBM is particularly revolutionary in thought, but he does concisely and clearly break down the basic elements of human behavioral models. when designing to change a users behavior understanding what motivates them, who they are, and most importantly timely triggering those behaviors.
I also liked the simplicity of this model – overall, it is very easy to follow and understand. I agree with what has been said about the BFM model going beyond the concept of user-centered design to flesh out the factors that influence how the user behaves and what it takes to change it.
The first two factors, motivation and ability, seemed to be common sense and fairly straight forward. For me, the part about triggers and timing is what stood out. I liked the emphasis on timing because it is something that is easy to forget when designing an experience. The three types of triggers – sparks, facilitators, and signals – try to enhance motivation, ability, and neither respectively to try to encourage an action to be taken at a specific point in time. It seems to me like effective use of triggers and a good sense of timing is what will take an experience from good to great.
BJ Fogg makes a simple and convincing argument that motivation, ability and triggers are the three main elements needed for a person to complete a target behavior. On first read, the three motivation pairs, six ability elements and three types of triggers seem to be rather comprehensive.
I also agree that triggers have grown in importance over time. We certainly see them working against the elements of cynicism and fatigue. Advertising in particular has grown deeply in sophistication in the last half-century. Now, guerilla marketing and viral ads are necessary to break through people’s thick walls of resistance.
Nonetheless, I wonder if part of this article’s simplicity is problematic. It assumes that the person is acting in good faith in completing the target behavior. On example is filling in a form to get a reward. Many people will have high motivation and high ability to fill in a form with false information to gain the reward, gaining all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
I agree with Paul about the fact that sometimes designers doesn’t think from the point of view of the user, and this reading reminds me of the importance of user interaction in everything.
It came to my mind the reason why some ugly websites, perform better than beautiful ones. It is because the ugly, may not have a good graphic design, but the interactions are clear and easy to follow, while in others the interaction could be super complex, than only a few people can understand how they work. This applies to anything that is related to design. (objects, websites, print material, etc…).
Also the reading, clarifies what I was saying in my other comment about the discipline that requires self-experimentation. The three Factors in the Behavior Model (Motivation, ability and triggers) are three important things to both design and experimentation. If we compare this factors to a cars, this is how I see it: Motivation is the pleasure to drive and to do things by themselves, ability is driving in any car and triggers could be the main board that shows the speed, and gas left signal. I don’t know if is a good example, that I think this principles could apply to many things.
I also think that this is quite simple and clear model for persuasive design. Even though it is not that fresh and innovative, I can think about how we can apply this model to self-experimentation world. I can see two main tasks we have to deal with, one is how to build clear universal and flexible model and the other is that how we can motivate people to engage with this model.
What could be the best motivator for self health experimentation among these 3 factors? Most of current health related models are based on pain and fear dimension. For the immediate reaction and engaging user to new platform,pain and fear motivation would helpful, but I believe, for the long term plan, it should move into social dimension so that it can trigger target behavior in the opportune moment.
I really enjoyed this reading and echo many of the previous comments on the simplicity (even if simplicity is comprised of 6 parts) of the model by aggregating disparate, if well known mechanisms of interaction and behavior. I had to look up what “captology” meant and have to say both it and this paper are very relevant to what we do here at ITP across specific fields of interest whether in arts, design or programming. From the Captology website at Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab, “Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technologies [...including] computers, mobile phones, websites, wireless technologies, mobile applications, video games, etc.) created for the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or behaviors.” Better put, Captology is about machines designed to change humans. Captology, by the way, is an acronym BJ Fogg coined meaning: Computers As Persuasive Technologies.
Fogg’s minimal FBM framework offers many opportunities to engineer successful triggers based on situational environment or context (emotional, social, environmental). To me, I’ve observed that everyone is motivated by something, the goal of persuasive tech is to remove the noise of daily life to activate or signal the Human Universals (i.e. goals, religion, coping, stories, tools) that are identified to exist across cultures, demographics and geographic boundaries.
Broadly speaking, I agree with Fogg that many attempts to design products and services fail because the designer has failed to think from the user’s perspective; lacking an understanding of their motivation and desired outcome, let alone the optimal path connecting the two. We see examples of this in our day to day interactions with products – the complexity of home electronics, or the focus on visual rather than interaction design in many websites. Fogg encourages us to carefully consider the ways in which we ask people to interact – which is a good thing.
Foggs perspective reminded me of some of the simpler books on usability testing by people like Steve Krug, Seth Godin and Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. These texts encourage us to understand users and their priorities as a prerequisite for designing an optimal experience for them.
Foggs model offers a simple model that encourages the designer to understand the user’s level and type of motivation, the action to be performed and the ability of the user to perform the action – as well as some external factor or trigger that begins the path to action. I particularly liked his highlighting of the interplay between motivation and ability – it’s good to be reminded that making something easy isn’t useful unless that something is aligned with a task that the user is motivated to complete. Similarly, a highly motivated user is not an opportunity to make the completion of a task more difficult than it should be – this is important; again, we just don’t see this in many of the things we see around us – many product designers assume that ownership/engagement is the same thing as motivation, which takes the focus off usability.
I do however, disagree with Fogg that this is a genuinely new way of thinking about human behaviour. It is perhaps a slightly updated way to think about the performance of tasks, and the design of interactions between people and objects – but the simplicity of the model doesn’t (from my admittedly limited understanding of behavioural economics and neuroscience) really address the complexity of the decision making process that happens when we are confronted with choice/complex environments. Again, that’s not to say the model isn’t a useful way to approach the design of systems in a more user-centered way.
FBM:
simple structure to understand human behavior in order to lead the will to create and work from various temptations.
I realized that this simple systematic method, we can create a real time monitor that helps people daily success. There are factors to operate the target behavior. These are motivation, ability, and trigger. Depending on individual condition and environments, sometimes, these factors are vary to affect on people’s behaviors. For instances, high motivation but low ability will bring an insufficient result on target behavior. This is because we are naturally managed to simple tasks, successfully. So here, for people, we need to think up a simple, easy tool, and method for people to reach a target behavior. This works for a team project, as well. As a team, people are approaching a goal with similarities that team’s successful result. People need to change behaviors in a similar way. There will need a proper trigger that can be facilitator, spark, and signal that leads a clear concept for a team. We need to understand how each main factors and subcomponents work properly. By FBM’s useful aspects, with a portable, handy, and prompt media device, we can trigger many behaviors, immediately. Surround features, environmental elements attempt people’s behavior that change a target behaviors. We can expect that using FBM structure with simple device that gives people a shortcut way to accomplish their target behavior, readily.
I enjoy this framework simply because it is so simple and explicit. I would agree with Paul in that there is nothing particularly new or revolutionary about this model, however it is nice to have it rationalized in such a clean way, as is done here, and I think it will function as a useful tool for our specific uses in this class.
I really liked that he’s included “Brain Cycles” as an ability factor, and says “But for the most part, we overestimate how much everyday people want to think. Thinking deeply or thinking in new ways can be difficult.” I understand all too well, considering the state that the previous reading of Self-Experimentation left me in.
I second Fred; this framework for understanding persuasive behaviors has a nice simplicity to it. This is a good framework for persuading users to complete actions. Fogg describes three behavioral factors that define persuasion: he or she: 1. must be sufficiently motivated, 2. have the ability to perform the behavior, and 3. be triggered to perform the behavior. I slightly disagree with second condition. I think we can be persuaded to do something even if don’t feel that we can perform. Fogg is trying capture the split second when we are persuaded to act, but I believe that there is an other cognitive process that can occur on the way to second condition that is inspired by the first condition motivation.
The sub-condition is willingness to learning. The willingness to learn a behavior is different from the person knowing they have the ability to perform. I guess you can say that the person is persuaded to do the task because even if they don’t know how to do it in that instance in the back of their mind they believe they can eventually learn; which would still fall under the constraints of the second condition. You could also argue that willingness to learn is a motivation, but I see learning is a separate cognitive process then motivation and competence.
Fogg discusses the fact that there are different levels of ability in his web email response example. He says that in order to make the task more usable make the task easier to do. He also talks about how motivation and ability interplay to increase or decrease persuasion. I see that interplay as the push to learn something; that there is a communication between the motivation and ability. Learning is a desire so it’s a motivation but it is also a state of ability. It is also apparent that sometimes people can be persuaded to do things that they are not sure they can learn or understand—that’s where great discoveries come from.
I agree with much of what’s been already said here. Fogg lays out a very clear, understandable model for us to use as a foundation for our persuasive designs. I appreciated his clarification in the beginning that persuasion here is “the attempt to influence behaviors not attitudes.” It will be interesting to see how differing use cases fit with this model. For example, how does it function when comparing systems designed for a select few as opposed to systems designed for the masses. Also, I’m curious how this model works in terms of the varying stages of the design process. In other words, how does the point in our stage of design affect the model and the design itself. More specifically, if we’re producing a minimum viable product, we might want high barriers of entry to target certain use cases and filter out unwanted ones for the time being. I guess it’s important to remember this model is a common starting point to be used and then built upon depending upon the specific situation.
On another note, Fogg’s mention of street lights made me think of the recent implementation in Los Angeles (and some spots in NY, possibly elsewhere) of the number countdown on crosswalk signals. I’m not sure if this would be considered a “facilitator” or not, but I know it made the experience of driving around LA and handling traffic signals much more pleasant and tolerable. It eliminated a great deal of uncertainty, tension, and stress that had taken root in the LA driving experience and was often the cause for bad, unsafe driving. It was a simple addition of information for the user (I can’t speak on the city’s exact motivations, probably safety) but it made a huge difference for me and I think subconsciously improved my overall driving behavior.
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The most exhilarating aspect of this article was the push towards a focus on the human being (I hate the words user/consumer. Is there a better word?). Although this sentiment has been echoed before by the likes of Don Norman and more recently by Seth Godin, Tim Brown etc, I really appreciate the methodology supporting the idea that is B.J Fogg’s contribution. In isolating the three factors, namely, motivation, ability & triggers, he has simplified a thread of behavioural psychology and made it conducive to work into design strategy. This article made me think of my own struggle with nutritional discipline and weight loss. I had the gym membership, the yoga groupon, the calorie tracking app, the fitness buddy app, the visualisation board, the motivation (mostly pain from shame), and the ability (does it get simpler than healthy home delivered meals?) but the article made me realise how ineffective my trigger is. I’ve always wondered why it was so different when I was an actress. My pain/fear motivation of not looking terrible on camera might be much stronger than my present motivation of pleasure (“It would be nice to fit again”), but the biggest difference is in the trigger. In Bombay, and specifically in the media, the trigger was the culture of fitness-obsession. You couldn’t travel, watch tv, turn on your computer or your phone without a reference to fitness, body, weight, or just a snapshot of a designer’s latest creation that looks like it was deliberately made so that only one half of you could fit into it. As a student, the cultural trigger is towards a completely different kind of behaviour. I realised I was unconsciously waiting for the cultural trigger to kick in. Instead, a whole new kind of motivation & trigger is called for.
This article also got me thinking about rural health. Being able to see through the FBM lens made it easier to spot the gaps. In trying to answer the questions of why villagers didn’t act upon urgent information about their health, I generally perceived it as a lack of a system which didn’t co-ordinate the various efforts on the ground. While that was true, being able to define it as a problem of ability (villagers had information but had no transport options to get to the hospitals) and also of trigger allowed me to explore solutions that I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. For eg, if we assume the motivation to treat a sick spouse is high, and the transport option is given, then could the offer of free meals at the hospital for the family act as a trigger?
This model has gone beyond the “user centric design” line that has become so popular and created a simple but effective way of approaching persuasive design. Is it the whole story? No. Critics might call it too simplistic, but then at the core, human behaviour can be so ridiculously simple.
This reading was interesting. A few things that stuck to me:
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don’t think you’re weird, you’re living badly.
It was a sad reminder that, being healthy is abnormal. Doing things we were born to do upon coming into the world is denied. But I wouldn’t go as far as the writer does to say that our ‘social antibodies’ aren’t up to speed with our addictions. It could be my own belief in that there is a homeostasis in all things, but also some of the examples the writer gives come across as a little whiny to me.
Not wanting the distracting internet to follow you everywhere you go doesn’t sound eccentric to me. It just sounds like a personal preference being pushed onto me. And his comment on the bottom with the iPad (as a non-iPad user) really just irritates me. I feel like he’s come down to picking and choosing which examples suit him at this point. Overall, I don’t disagree with his thesis, but I’m not really stomaching the way he’s presented his facts.
I guess that brings a good point of how far does ‘health’ decide what should be ‘normal’ or even ‘healthy’. There is psychological health and there is physical health. Admittedly, I don’t think I’d be making a strong argument in saying ‘having the internet makes you happy = makes you healthy = makes you healthy’ But I do generally feel like the human race is more adaptable than he presumes. Else, we’ll be extinct sooner than we hope.
This is the right response….why can’t I delete my other comment???
Having taken psychology in my undergrad, this model definitely felt like another variation other models I’ve learned. It was helpful for me to draw it out following along, even though it was straightforward and common sensical.
But one thing I didn’t think that was as intuitive was the idea of a trigger. Thinking back to my summer internship at an ad agency, I can now think of many many instances of triggers. The whole model of (motivation + ability) + trigger = persuation made me think about an example in our Design for Unicef Class.
Uganda is one the countries in the world that has very successfully reduced their HIV infected population by embracing their campaigns (motivation), granting access to protection and sex-ed (ability) and with campaigns, knowledge, and safe sex, their numbers shot down from 30% of the population to 5%.
In context of self-documentation, this reading makes me think that, at least in my experience, my biggest hindrance in self-documentation lies in the ability to do so. It’s consuming, and figuring out qualitative parameters and measures is often challenging. I’m curious to see how this behavior model will influence my future designs, especially in self-quantification.
Trigger –> Motivation + Ability = Performed Behavior
this is essentially fogg’s self-title behavioral model (FBM). fogg points out that motivation and ability must go hand in hand in for a user to perform a desired behavior. simple enough — but i think this is an important basic thought to keep in mind when designing a tool — no matter how simple the design might be without proper motivation the user might not complete the task, just as no matter how motivated the user if the cannot operate the system the task goes undone as well. and fogg demonstrates that a 3rd factor is needed in this system — triggers in a word are catalysts for user’s of to reach their desired goals, and triggers can take on three different methods of approach as well ::
1. sparks
– inspire a motivational element
2. facilitators
– facilitate the ability of the user to perform the behavior
3. signals
– reminder
in FBM there are 3 motivator frameworks fogg details ::
1. pleasure/pain
– immediate goals/desires
2. hope/fear
– long term goals/desires
3. social acceptance/rejection
– community perception
concerning ability fogg sums up human behavior as thus “people are fundamental lazy.” by designing for simplicity people’s ability to perform a task is greatly improved. fogg details time, money, social pressure as all contraints for designing for simplicity. but the most powerful and elemental in my opinion is routine — just route behavior is often a key factor to encourage good behavior.
in all, i agree with fogg. i don’t believe his FBM is particularly revolutionary in thought, but he does concisely and clearly break down the basic elements of human behavioral models. when designing to change a users behavior understanding what motivates them, who they are, and most importantly timely triggering those behaviors.
I also liked the simplicity of this model – overall, it is very easy to follow and understand. I agree with what has been said about the BFM model going beyond the concept of user-centered design to flesh out the factors that influence how the user behaves and what it takes to change it.
The first two factors, motivation and ability, seemed to be common sense and fairly straight forward. For me, the part about triggers and timing is what stood out. I liked the emphasis on timing because it is something that is easy to forget when designing an experience. The three types of triggers – sparks, facilitators, and signals – try to enhance motivation, ability, and neither respectively to try to encourage an action to be taken at a specific point in time. It seems to me like effective use of triggers and a good sense of timing is what will take an experience from good to great.
BJ Fogg makes a simple and convincing argument that motivation, ability and triggers are the three main elements needed for a person to complete a target behavior. On first read, the three motivation pairs, six ability elements and three types of triggers seem to be rather comprehensive.
I also agree that triggers have grown in importance over time. We certainly see them working against the elements of cynicism and fatigue. Advertising in particular has grown deeply in sophistication in the last half-century. Now, guerilla marketing and viral ads are necessary to break through people’s thick walls of resistance.
Nonetheless, I wonder if part of this article’s simplicity is problematic. It assumes that the person is acting in good faith in completing the target behavior. On example is filling in a form to get a reward. Many people will have high motivation and high ability to fill in a form with false information to gain the reward, gaining all the benefits with none of the drawbacks.
I agree with Paul about the fact that sometimes designers doesn’t think from the point of view of the user, and this reading reminds me of the importance of user interaction in everything.
It came to my mind the reason why some ugly websites, perform better than beautiful ones. It is because the ugly, may not have a good graphic design, but the interactions are clear and easy to follow, while in others the interaction could be super complex, than only a few people can understand how they work. This applies to anything that is related to design. (objects, websites, print material, etc…).
Also the reading, clarifies what I was saying in my other comment about the discipline that requires self-experimentation. The three Factors in the Behavior Model (Motivation, ability and triggers) are three important things to both design and experimentation. If we compare this factors to a cars, this is how I see it: Motivation is the pleasure to drive and to do things by themselves, ability is driving in any car and triggers could be the main board that shows the speed, and gas left signal. I don’t know if is a good example, that I think this principles could apply to many things.
I also think that this is quite simple and clear model for persuasive design. Even though it is not that fresh and innovative, I can think about how we can apply this model to self-experimentation world. I can see two main tasks we have to deal with, one is how to build clear universal and flexible model and the other is that how we can motivate people to engage with this model.
What could be the best motivator for self health experimentation among these 3 factors? Most of current health related models are based on pain and fear dimension. For the immediate reaction and engaging user to new platform,pain and fear motivation would helpful, but I believe, for the long term plan, it should move into social dimension so that it can trigger target behavior in the opportune moment.
I really enjoyed this reading and echo many of the previous comments on the simplicity (even if simplicity is comprised of 6 parts) of the model by aggregating disparate, if well known mechanisms of interaction and behavior. I had to look up what “captology” meant and have to say both it and this paper are very relevant to what we do here at ITP across specific fields of interest whether in arts, design or programming. From the Captology website at Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab, “Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technologies [...including] computers, mobile phones, websites, wireless technologies, mobile applications, video games, etc.) created for the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or behaviors.” Better put, Captology is about machines designed to change humans. Captology, by the way, is an acronym BJ Fogg coined meaning: Computers As Persuasive Technologies.
Fogg’s minimal FBM framework offers many opportunities to engineer successful triggers based on situational environment or context (emotional, social, environmental). To me, I’ve observed that everyone is motivated by something, the goal of persuasive tech is to remove the noise of daily life to activate or signal the Human Universals (i.e. goals, religion, coping, stories, tools) that are identified to exist across cultures, demographics and geographic boundaries.