Bi-weekly meetings with us to help you detect or unravel behavioral problems your product is facing and align the stakeholders' expectations. We will look at your available usage data, your development backlog, and academic bibliography to prepare a meeting that will get us working on a particular issue.

By the end of the two hours, you should have actionable feedback to create changes (often in the form of experiments) to your product. There will be a consensus between stakeholders on the current most significant problem to solve, the development priorities, and the results of previous experiments.

A week before the meeting, one member of your team (usually your PM or PO) will propose a theme or problem to solve on your product usage or development path. If no theme is proposed by that time, we will take the time to review your data (if available) and present a theme ourselves. We will have a short meeting to get an introduction of the subject, receive the materials, or to help you brainstorm and prioritize problems in your product

We will prepare a meeting to showcase the problem and present concepts and ideas that might inspire solutions. This meeting will use different dynamics to get all stakeholders to think about the problem under a behavioral lens and develop a possible solution to implement in your product so it can be measured. In further meetings, we will take the time to review the impact of these interventions.

The service is available as a monthly retainer (biweekly meetings) or single meeting: 

         1000 USD + taxes per month.
         600 USD + taxes per single meeting

Work on your product's problems from a behavioral perspective

Ingenious

Consultation

Most of our actions have costs and benefits at different time points. Some actions have immediate benefits and future costs: watching another episode of that series we love now and leaving the chores for later, taking on debts to please ourselves and then paying interest, or pretending that the doctor did not alert us about the sugar levels in the last checkup, keeping up a diet rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Other actions have immediate costs and future benefits: running 5k, going to all your medical check-ups, or studying hard for an important test. Immediate rewards seem disproportionately higher than future rewards. This phenomenon is known as time discount.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

The fact is, we value current benefits more than future ones. Psychologists and behavioral economists call this peculiarity of human behavior present bias or impulsivity, something that happens to all of us. If present bias were the only way to make decisions, we will always choose to enjoy immediately rewarding activities now and save costs for later. Of course, when the time comes to decide once more we would postpone the costs again. And so on and on. But we know that there are ways to escape present bias. Let’s see one way that happens.

Behavioral economists distinguish between people who are aware that future benefits are less attractive, and those who assume that when the time comes, will be able to bear the costs. The former are called "sophisticates" and the latter "naivetes." Everyone suffers from present bias, but the former group is aware of it. For this reason, the sophisticated sometimes choose to restrict their future selves so that they can no longer indulge themselves.

A commitment device is a formal or informal contract that has some cost in the present and that we assume in order to put limits on our future actions. The cost can be mostly psychological or economic. Psychological cost means that breaking the contract will bring guilt or shame. For example, we promise our partner that we will not throw vegetables in the trash during the next month. We brush our teeth early to avoid snacking later, or we drink water before going to bed to make sure we will get up early in the morning. 

Economic costs may or may not be monetary. Professors at some universities offer a course format that forces students to turn in assignments on time (and if they don't make it, grades will be punished) instead of being able to defer turnarounds until the last day. Buying a bitter-tasting nail polish costs some money, and we do this to avoid falling into the habit of biting our nails. At the extreme of the spectrum, there are companies that receive money that is only paid back if the objective we have set is met within the term we define. If we can't keep our word, they donate the money. These forms of commitment with an associated economic cost are known as hard commitments.

Although the distinction between sophisticated and naivete is theoretical, field studies show that only a small portion of people agree to use commitment devices. And other studies show that they are not foolproof. Let’s go over a couple of examples that address these points.

In one field experiment, a group of 2000 smokers was offered to open an account where they could transfer a desired amount of money every month. If on the sixth month they passed a urine test for nicotine, they would be returned the money, otherwise, money would be forfeited to charity. Only 11 % of those offered the product accepted to open the account. People who were offered the product were overall more likely to quit smoking (about 5 percentage points more likely). Those who deposited money more often or in bigger amounts had even greater chances of success. Even though these numbers show that just a small proportion of smokers want to accept a hard commitment device to stop smoking, these values aren’t bad compared to other cessation products. 

Soft commitments can be achieved in the absence of monetary transactions. In a study carried to evaluate the effect of public commitment on weight loss , participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no commitment, short term or long term (the weekly weights of the participants of these two latter groups were publicly displayed for half or all the treatment period). As in the previous study, the experimental groups showed better outcomes. In these cases, while people in the control group were able to achieve a weight loss corresponding to 90% of their goal, people in the experimental groups were able, on average, to fully achieve their goal. Interestingly, the effect depended on a psychological trait known as susceptibility to normative influence. That is, the more you care about what others think, the more effective the public commitment is.

We still have a lot to learn in order to design better commitments. And even thogugh they are not bulletproof, commitments are an interesting option to include in the behavioral designer toolbox. 

Pay now or pay later

now or

later?

From Tinder to a "Marriage app," our process helped meet at Chabad understand their strengths and needs to create a unique product that will get people married. 

How do you design a Marriage app instead of a dating app?

Dating

Marriage

We have been helping researchers develop the technological tools they need for more than eight years. We won't lie to you: we have seen some grant applications succeed, and many fail. But every time that happened, we learned something new.

We have condensed all our insights into this toolkit designed to help researchers integrate technological solutions into their grant applications.

Toolkit for including digital products in your grant application

This half a day course is designed to introduce an organization into the world of behavioral design. It will allow your collaborators to identify potential problems that can be resolved using this field and create simple (but effective) changes to your product or service.

Our introduction covers three principal models to think from a Behavioral perspective. These models, proposed initially for behavioral economics, are the base to design interventions. We will also share our way of combining these three into a methodology that creates better products.

The second part of the course is track-dependent. The organization must choose one of the following paths or develop one specifically for the case. Each track provides further information relevant to a particular subject and includes a group exercise to help the team apply what they have learned.

How to define a MVP using behavioral design - Start up / Spin off

How to get people to act using messages- Governments / Large Organizations

Behavioral design for Research projects. - Universities / NGO's

We will conduct an interview with one of the organization's stakeholders to survey some of the team's problems. Together we will craft a custom syllabus for the day, including a custom exercise based on your organization's issues.

Custom track (4hrs course + planning with stakeholder)

$2500 + $80 per participant

The course is 100% remote and can be attended up to 15 people in one instance.

Introduce your organization into the world of behavioral design.

Behavioral

Introduction

To take the lead on Behavioral design and create new methodologies to craft products means to be involved in the advancement of the fields that supports it. For this reason, we have been in touch with academia since our origins, and we even have partnered with researchers to create our own research. 

During these collaborations we found out that often researchers needed to translate models of behavioral change from theory into a product, and we have a knack for understanding their needs. Since then, we have been aiding in the development of products and prototypes designed to assist the  executions of research grants in several institutions of relevance.

How do you digitize a method to prevent alcohol exposed pregnancies?

Inter American development Bank (IADB - BID)

A process to carry out research for the adoption of a new HPV test

Coronavirus relief aid - BID Washington/Colombia

How to influence on physicians opioids prescriptions?

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)

Examples of product design for researchers

Helping researchers

change behavior

Social workers in the child welfare sector deal with several challenges: a stressful job filled with heart breaking stories, coordination with several parties and organisms, field work away from the children they strive to generate a brighter future for, long hours that lead to job-family imbalance. They need much more than just a case managing system. They need a tool that helps them be efficient in their job while taking care of them.

Makes it easy to create new documents if working out of the office. Users can dictate and the system will automatically find relevant data.

Manages the data in the backend, making it easy to find whatever the user needs in just a few clicks.

Provides traceability of the information, so no more lost data or missing information.

To see the science behind the scenes, take a look here.

The result is a tool that social workers and managers love! 

How we created an App for Child Protections Services

Design products

based on behaviors

E-commerce is an ever expanding business across the global marketplace. As stores and retailers expand their selling channels, managing that diversification can be troublesome. That’s where metacommerce tools come in handy: they centralize business operations and integrate with other managing tools.

When Astroselling came to us, they had a great set of features and functionalities to deliver value. Yet, they were having retention issues. Why?

We used our Behavioral Insights Assessment to analyze the platform. A BI is a theoretical approach (that can be boosted with data analysis) that takes into account when and how features are presented, to discover what the users actually get from your product. Take a look at the science behind BI.

-Many key features had triggering issues, so they were outside the user’s attention span

- Certain features were presented at the wrong time, making them hard to use 

-Motivation in key steps was curtailed by long, cumbersome processes. 

-There were issues with labels, making it non intuitive to try out some functionalities.

These insights resulted in a product reformulation that is now growing quickly!

How we helped an e-commerce platform with retention issues

Insights

Oil change is fundamental for the maintenance of engines. In southeast Asia, there are plenty of old motorcycles. Maintenance in these motorcycles is essential to keep them running. Unfortunately, many motorcyclists forget to periodically change oil, or they simply ignore that oil must be changed.

Nowadays motorbikes owners must remember to check the odometer and notice that a certain amount of kilometers have been traveled. This method is prone to failures, users forget when was the last oil change and periodically check the oil level for leakages.

Oil Meter

Let see this problem from the perspective of the BJ Fogg behavioral model. In this model each time a user will execute a behavior humans take into consideration three factors, Ability, Motivation, and a trigger that forces the computation. If there is enough ability and motivation when the trigger fires then the behavior will be performed. 

In this case we the problem does not deal with ability, which would be represented by factors like money and time to make an oil change. Nor it has to do with motivation to keep the motorbike running and in good shape. The problem is a triggering problem, how to prompt the rider that an oil change is needed. 

The original problem was a triggering problem (the user does not notice that the oil needs to be changed) in some dated motorcycles.

The new problem is that in most vehicles the triggering mechanism for an oil change is dated.

This changes the scope of the problem and makes us question the objective public for this product.

The design has two distinct sections, the cap, and the dipstick. The cap is hollow and contains most of the electronics of the device, insulated from the heat of the oil tank using a thermo isolant that separates both sections. Here is placed the piezoelectric sensor that measures the vibration of the engine along with the microprocessor that deals with the logic required to notify the user. On the top face it contains a button that allows interactions with the user:

reset the timer when oil has been changed

Visually notify how close is the next alarm.

In the same place, there is a LED light that is used to communicate with the user such as

The dipstick has a float that when is not submerged in oil, notifies an alarm to the user until detected. Note that this alert will be processed by the cap only when the engine is off, due to engine movement, temperature, and safety conditions.

Design Behaviors
Not Features.

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

Work on your product's problems from a behavioral perspective

Work on your product's problems from a behavioral perspective

Pay now or pay later

Pay now or pay later

How do you design a Marriage app instead of a dating app?

How do you design a Marriage app instead of a dating app?

Toolkit for including digital products in your grant application

Toolkit for including digital products in your grant application

Introduce your organization into the world of behavioral design.

Introduce your organization into the world of behavioral design.

Examples of product design for researchers

Examples of product design for researchers

How we created an App for Child Protections Services

How we created an App for Child Protections Services

How we helped an e-commerce platform with retention issues

How we helped an e-commerce platform with retention issues

how to trigger a motorbike oil change

how to trigger a motorbike oil change

Predict

Irrationalities

Predict

Irrationalities

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

Check our behavioral cards!

Design BehaviorsNot Features.

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

Predict

Irrationalities

Predict

Irrationalities

People are not doing the things I expect.

I’m planning a product or a new version.

I want to learn more about Behavioral Design.

Check our behavioral cards!

Design Behaviors
Not Features.