BEco for designers
Behavioural Economics is a discipline that seeks to understand how human beings make decisions.
When we approach the creation of a new product, we know that we have to carry out a task of discovery, immersion, benchmarking, user personas, user research, etc.
The design work can be reduced to a communication mediated by an interface (remember the idea of Human-Computer Interaction if we talk about the origins of UX). What we create is content that must then be decoded and interpreted by a person to transform it into information.
Hence the importance of uniting two universes from the fusion of which the creations that really have an impact on people are born: design and psychology. That is why, for some time now at The Cocktail, we have decided to incorporate knowledge and specialists from Behavioural Economics (BEco) to accompany our reflections in order to anticipate and take our design hypotheses further. Let's see why.
What is BEco and why is it important for a designer?
Behavioural Economics is a discipline that seeks to understand how humans make decisions. It was born as an intersection between economics and psychology that studied people's economic decisions and tried to influence them. It has finally revealed that human decision-making processes are much more complex and less conscious than we tend to believe.
BEco is a tool that allows us to understand how cognitive biases, the systematic errors made by using mental shortcuts in the decision-making process, shape our preferences.
When we design a product, a screen or any point of contact with a person, we must take into account how what is known as their decision architecture is produced. What influences them? What pushes them? What holds them back? An interesting video to whet your appetite about its importance is this iconic Ted Talk by Dan Ariely: "Are we in control of our decisions?
Want to learn how to incorporate BEco into your design processes?
If, like us, you believe that it is no longer enough to talk only about data-driven design or user-centered design, but that we need to raise design thinking even higher, we encourage you to join us and the rest of the design community through a series of webinars and meetings that allow us to move forward in the union of both disciplines.
So, if you want to know more, join us next December 17th at 18h to our webinar "Design 🖤 Behavioral Economics", where we will make a first review of the importance of this union through practical cases of real application and where we will share a first checklist that will surely stimulate you in your design processes. See you there!