Design for Behaviour Change : Theories and practices of designing for change

Design for Behaviour Change explores a social and organizational phenomenon that has been driven by changes in technology, society and the world economy. The book describes the various psychological and design tools that are useful in planning, facilitating and understanding behaviour change and provides detailed case studies from the perspectives of health and well-being, safety, crime, sustainability and social design. This text will inform designers and design students of the behavioural aspects of change and will inform practitioners of behavioural change how they can better use design in their processes. Government, business and the third sector are all looking for transformative processes to realise the sea change that will sustain economies, help rethink intractable problems such as climate change or migration. Design for Behaviour Change provides the theoretical and practical underpinning to kick-starting the movement.

Design impacts every part of our lives. The design of products and services influences the way we go about our daily activities and it is hard to imagine any activity in our daily lives that is not dependent on design in some capacity. Clothing, mobile phones, computers, cars, tools and kitchenware all enable and hold in place everyday practices. Despite design’s omnipresence, the understanding of how design may facilitate desirable behaviours is still fragmented, with limited frameworks and examples of how design can effect change in professional and public contexts.

This text presents an overview of current approaches dedicated to understanding how design may be used intentionally to make changes to improve a range of problematic social and environmental issues. It offers a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral overview of different academic theories adopted and applied to design for behaviour change.

The aim of the volume is twofold: firstly, to provide an overview of existing design models that integrate theories of change from differing scientific backgrounds; secondly, to offer an overview of application of key design for behaviour change approaches as used across case studies in different sectors, such as design for health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety, design against crime and social design. Design for Behaviour Change will appeal to designers, design students and practitioners of behavioural change.