2 0 1 4

Design for
Behavioral econ meets ux
#DESIGNFORACTION
Welcome!
wi-fi: Arlington Wireless
(no password)
Track ONE
Track Two
Ballroom
Black box theatre
Please note that the Black Box Theatre is only accessible through the Ballroom. In order to minimize disruptions, we ask
that you commit to one track for the duration of that session.
8:15-9:00 AM
• REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST
9:00-9:15 AM
• OPENING COMMENTS: STEVE WENDEL
What is Behavioral Economics & How Can It Be Applied to Products?
Steve is the Founder of the Action Design Network, and author of Designing for Behavior Change. He
serves as the Principal Scientist at HelloWallet, where he helps users take control of their finances
through behavioral science.
9:15-10:15 AM
• KEYNOTE: KELVIN KWONG
Behavorial Change Design for Wearable Devices
The Jawbone UP leads a new wave of wearable computing devices, helping its users become more
active, sleep more and eat better. Learn how Jawbone purposefully designs UP to support behavior
change, using the latest behavioral science research.
Kelvin is Jawbone UP’s product manager, and leads behavior change design for its software.
10:15-10:30 AM • COFFEE BREAK
10:30-11:10 AM • Kristen Berman
10:30 - 11:55 PM • UX FOR GOOD
Hacking Human Nature for Good: Practical lessons in
applying social science to product development
Jeff Leitner and Jason Ulaszek
As a product community, we now have an overflow of user
data and web analytics to help us understand what is going
on in our products and the Agile project structure to support
uncertainty. There is only one thing left… How do we take
this data and use it to improve people’s lives? The missing
link in our product-creation process is to understand and
apply insights within human psychology (or more plainly,
to understand your user’s mindset at the point of decision
making).
Kristen founded Irrational Labs with Dan Ariely in 2013
to help companies understand and leverage behavioral
economics–how and why people make the decisions they
do. Kristen works with partners to design, test and scale
products that use behavioral economics.
11:15-11:55 AM
• Chris Risdon
Behavior Change as Value Proposition
Design to support behavior change is getting increased
exposure as technology has allowed products and
services to have a more pervasive role in people’s lives.
What impact does the ability to passively collect data and
present it back in a meaningful way have in people’s lives?
We are interacting with this data of our everyday lives in
new ways. Smart products with personalized intelligence
about our behavior help us track how many times we brush
our teeth or walk the dog, with the hope we’ll be better at
maintaining these habits. Where do these new offerings
map on our landscape of products and services? What
impact does data have on our behavior? How do data
visualizations amplify persuasion and impact behavior?
While more products have an explicit influence on our
daily lives, they require you to increasingly relinquish selfdetermination as a prerequisite for use. How do we design
to support behavior change as a value proposition?
Chris Risdon is a design director at Adaptive Path. He’s
a multidisciplinary designer with an MFA in design and
experience in graphic, interaction and service design.
Earlier this year, UX for Good enlisted a team of user
experience designers to work on behalf of an institution
with an undoubtable moral mandate for action: the Kigali
Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, final resting place for
more than 250,000 people killed in the 1994 genocide.
Aegis Trust, the organization that built and operates the
memorial, wanted to make sure that visitors were offered
not just a strong emotional experience at the memorial site
and museum, but opportunities to help stop genocide today
and in the future.
With the help of the Rwandan people, the team of
designers made use of an array of resources and design
skills, from experts on museum design to their own
personal observations at the memorial site. Inspired
directly by the young people who visited and worked at the
Kigali site across various programming and educational
initiatives, the designers developed a model the Kigali
museum—and all museums—can use to convert
profound emotional experiences into action. Over the
last few months, the designers involved have continued
investigating the model and are now ready to begin testing
and learning more about its applicability to museums
around the world. But, we need your help - we want you to
prototype a toolkit that captures and shares globally what
we’re learning.
Jeff Leitner is founder of GreenHouse, a portfolio of
ambitious social impact projects jointly developed by the
founders of Insight Labs and institutions, governments
and NGOs in the US and Europe. He is also Innovator in
Residence at USC School of Social Work, founder of UX
for Good, founding director of Greenhouse Fellowship and
founding partner in The Brador Group, Ltd.
Jason Ulaszek leads the experience strategy practice at
Manifest Digital. He has worked with some of the biggest
and most influential brands in the country, including
Allstate, Cardinal Health, Kohl’s and Mattel, helping them
identify new business opportunities to improve brand
awareness, customer satisfaction and loyalty. He is also a
founder of UX for Good.
12:00-1:15 pM • LUNCH AND NETWORKING
1:15-1:55 PM
• MICHAEL NORTON
Transparency and Trust
How can organizations—from companies to governments—
gain the trust of their key stakeholders (from customers
to constituents) to increase both buy in and buying?
Customers frequently feel that they are being overcharged
for services that seem costless (such as ATM machines),
while citizens feel that they are overtaxed for services they
believe they do not use. Michael Norton will show that by
increasing operational transparency—showing the work
being done on stakeholders’ behalf—organizations can (re)
gain trust, increase satisfaction, and trigger purchase.
A Professor at the Harvard Business School and member
of the Harvard Behavioral Insights Group, Michael is also
a co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Smarter
Spending. His research has been featured twice in the
New York Times Magazine Year in Ideas issue, as well as
Harvard Business Review‘s Breakthrough Ideas, and Wired
Magazine’s Smart List.
2:00-2:40 PM • MATTHEW PEARSON
Inspiring Trust: Improving the Accuracy of Airbnb Reviews
Online marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Airbnb rely heavily
on the quality of user reviews. These companies, including
Airbnb, face a challenge—how to encourage users to be
honest in their reviews, or to write them at all. New York
Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that
“Airbnb’s real innovation is not online rentals. It’s trust.” Trust
is particularly important on Airbnb because the experience
moves from online to offline as hosts and guests meet in
person, often in the host’s primary home. Airbnb recently
conducted extensive research to understand how to
improve the trustworthiness of the reviews system. This
session will describe the research process, the discovery
of potential product changes, and the resulting impact on
business metrics.
Matthew is a behavioral economist on Airbnb’s product team.
1:15-1:55 PM
• Rapid fire presentationS
Lisa Goldberg: A Usability Test Is Not A Focus Group
Learn the differences between usability and market
research, when each type of research is most useful
for product design and development, and practical
considerations for integrating research into your projects.
Lisa is a Manager Information Architect at Sapient
Wendi Chiong: Beyond the Usability Lab
Learn how innovative exploratory research methods can
shape product development by uncovering profound
and often unexpected insights about user behaviors and
motivations. We’ll discuss techniques for incorporating
exploratory, creative UX research into the product
development process.
Wendi is a User Experience Researcher at AnswerLab
John Whalen: Seducing the Six Minds
This talk introduces Emergent UX­—a process designed
to dramatically improve product design by deeply
understanding your audience’s conscious and unconscious
needs on cognitive and emotional levels.
John has a PhD in Cognitive Science and leads Brilliant
Experience.
2:00-2:40 PM • Anastasiya Pocheptsova
The Renting Mindset
It is increasingly common for products—movies, designer
bags, furniture, TVs, textbooks—to be offered for purchase
by some retailers and for rent by others. Subscription and
shared ownership options are among the most fast growing
sectors in the economy (think Airbnb, Uber, RentaRunway).
But what do we know about consumer decision processes
behind the choices to rent or temporarily own products?
How should companies design and promote options that
are targeted towards renters vs. buyers?
Anastasiya has a PhD in marketing from the Yale and is
an assistant professor at the University of Maryland.
2:40-3:00 pM
• Snack break
3:00-3:40 PM
• Dustin DiTommaso
Brains, Games and Behavior Change
Dustin blazes trails with his work, merging design with
motivational psychology and technology to help people
change their lives. Putting theory into practice, he delivers
solutions that transform people’s attitudes, behavior, and
physical and financial health. He designs products and
programs that incorporate behavior change and gameful
design for clients ranging from innovative start-ups to
Fortune 500 companies. An accomplished speaker
and trainer on the subject of behavior change, Dustin
participates in many health and design conferences both
nationally and internationally.
3:45-4:25 PM
• Josh Wright
Bridging the Action-Intention Gap using Behavioral Design
In this talk, Josh Wright will share a bit about the unique
ideas42 methodology and approach to behavioral design,
which focuses on human decision-making and behaviors
one specific context at a time, with the aim of improving
millions of lives. Spanning the when, why and how to use
these insights from human behavior to maximize social
impact, the session will close with real-world examples.
Josh is the Executive Director of ideas42, a non-profit
behavioral ideas lab. He leads the organization’s work across
multiple domains in the public and private sector to design
and test scalable solutions to complex social problems using
cutting-edge behavioral insights.
#DESIGNFORACTION
3:00-3:40 PM
• Julian Jamison
Modernizing Mandated Disclosures
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has
been applying 21st-century ideas from design, behavioral
economics, and psychology to consumer-facing products
in a variety of areas, including its own website. This
presentation will primarily focus on the Bureau’s work
regarding mandatory disclosures for financial products, such
as prepaid cards and mortgages. Key principles such as
avoiding information overload and salience are informed by
best practices in the broader user experience community.
The Bureau believes in rigorous testing to evaluate the
efficacy of potential disclosures and other policies.
Julian C. Jamison is a behavioral economist whose
research uses theoretical modeling, laboratory experiments,
and field experiments to explore individual preferences
and information, as well as how those attributes influence
behaviors and outcomes. He has consulted for the World
Bank, NASA, and Lockheed-Martin.
3:45-4:25 PM
• Pamela Chan
Behavior Change for Non-Profits Workshop
After learning about how different innovators are designing
for action, here’s a chance for you to try out behavioral
design for yourself. Using a real life challenge from the
non-profit world, you will learn how to identify barriers to
behavior change and brainstorm solutions to nudge people
past them. Once we’ve had a chance to hear your ideas,
see what really happened when a behaviorally-informed
solution was put to the test in the organization.
Pamela Chan leads the innovation research and
design portfolio at CFED (Corporation for Enterprise
Development), a non-profit based in Washington, DC
that seeks to expand economic opportunity in the U.S. In
her work, she draws lessons from marketing research,
psychology, and behavioral economics to create and
enhance community-based services that build financial
capability and assets in low-income communities.
esign for
4:25-4:45 pM
• BREAK
4:45-5:45 pM
• KEYNOTE: STEPHEN ANDERSON
From Paths to Sandboxes
Designers are trained to guide users toward predetermined outcomes, but is there a better use of
this persuasive psychology? What happens if we focus less on influencing desired behaviors and
focus more on designing ‘sandboxes’: open-ended, generative systems? And how might we go about
designing these spaces? It’s still “psychology applied to design”, but in a much more challenging and
rewarding way! In this talk, speaker Stephen P. Anderson will share the journey he’s been on, from
trying to shape and influence a user’s path, to creating these sandbox environments. You’ll learn why
systems such as Twitter, Pinterest, and Minecraft are so maddeningly addictive, and what principles
we can use to create similar experiences.
Stephen is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He
created the Mental Notes card deck, a tool that’s widely used by product teams to apply psychology to
interaction design. He’s also of the author of the book Seductive Interaction Design.
5:45-6:00 pM
• Closing comments: Zarak Khan
6:00-8:00 PM
• After party and networking
Le Meridien’s Amuse Bar • 1121 19th St N, Arlington, VA 22209
Spend some time enjoying the company of your new friends and colleagues at Le Meridien’s Amuse
Bar, right around the corner from Artisphere. Drinks will be available for purchase as we network and
hang out against the stunning backdrop of the DC skyline.
“Marketing demographics and functional specs
cannot tell me
if our customers are going to be
by the design decisions we are making...
In this sense, we have one of the most VALUABLE
InSIDE OUR
ORGANIZATION:
delighted
We represent the customer.”
– Stephen Anderson
JOBS
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TRACK ONE
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TRACK
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Mechanical room
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ARTISPHERE
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Black Box
Exit to
Freedom Walk
1101 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA
(703) 875-1100
Nearest metro: rosslyn
S P O N S O R S
esign for
About the Action Design Network
The Action Design Network is a community of over a thousand practitioners and researchers interested
in exploring the use of behavioral economics and psychology in the design and development of products
that help people take action to improve their lives.
We organize monthly Meetup events in Washington D.C, San Francisco, Boston and New York City,
bringing together researchers, designers, product managers, and entrepreneurs to learn about cutting
edge behavioral research, and how to practically apply it in everyday consumer products.
We are thrilled you are able to join us today and would love to see you at the next Meetup! If you’re
interested in speaking, let us know at admin@actiondesigner.net.
ACT I ON D ES I G N E R . N E T
d e s i g n e d b y K at h r y n c l a r k • k at h r y n c l a r k d e s i g n . c o m