Developing a design approach for The Continuous Behaviour Cycle

Abstract

When looking at the world around us, most of our surroundings are artificially constructed. These constructions have persuasive power and affect human behaviour, whether intended or not (Tromp & Hekkert, 2018). The industrial design discipline is responsible for configuring our environment, and therefore, for the influence that they might generate in the society. Designers need to embrace the situation and aim towards a positive impact in the user. This project intended to develop the required tools for achieving that purpose.

One tool that aims to embrace designers to focus in the behavioural outcome is the Continuous Behaviour Cycle, or CBC. This model focuses on developing repetitive behaviour until a habit is achieved and does it by deeply understanding the drivers of the user.

The CBC model was developed as part of the Honors Programmeme Master Project, and it was well received in both the academia and the commercial environment (Arias Arias, 2018). Nevertheless, one of the conclusions of the Project was that the complexity of the model limited its use in a traditional design process. For this reason, the need for defining a project development process approach became evident. This project aims to develop a design approach for the Continuous Behaviour Cycle.

To explore how designers could use the CBC model, this project started with a review of other approaches related to behavioural design with the purpose of mapping design processes. This served as a starting point for working with the CBC model. A first approach was proposed and used in three case studies. The outcome from the case studies delivered key insights that defined the final CBC model iteration. The final approach was tested by applying it to a design challenge.

The case studies were mainly commercial challenges. This was done with the purpose of bridging the gap between what is developed in the academia and what is needed in the market. The innovation and strategy firm Fronteer provided the cases for the project. Fronteer is a consultancy firm located in Amsterdam. They strongly believe that true innovation can only be done in collaborative environments, therefore they work with co-creative processes.

The resulting design approach is a four-stage process. Each stage focuses on different elements of the CBC model and delivers a more defined concept each time. The four stages are: situation determination, value definition, concept directions and solution requirements.

During the situation determination, the designer analyzes the needs of the client and the drivers of the user for framing the scope of the solution. Then, during the value definition, the designer develops the structure of the cycle by identifying the reasons why a user would perform the intended behaviour and what could receive in return. During the concept direction, the designer identifies which resources does the user has for performing the behaviour and what are the characteristics of the environment where the behaviour could take place. Finally, during the solution requirements, the designer focuses on equilibrating the elements of the contexts by designing the last elements that could ease the execution of the behaviour and encourage recurrence.

A set of tools was proposed for using the CBC model in Fronteer’s current project development process. Through these set of tools, the CBC method was finally evaluated with designers, clients and strategists.