Stanford Behavior Design Lab

The Stanford Behavior Design Lab (formerly known as the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and Stanford Captology Lab) is a research organization advancing behavior change methods and models based at Stanford University. Founded in 1998 and directed by B. J. Fogg, the Behavior Design Lab is a team of Stanford students, recent graduates, and quantitative researchers who study factors that impact human behavior, and conduct IRB research. The team is the global authority in a new and systematic way to design for behavior change, an approach called “Behavior Design”. The Lab manager is Tanna Drapkin.[1][2]

The Behavior Design Lab performs research and trains Fortune 500 companies on the use of Computing Technology and Behavior Design to facilitate positive behavior change in product design, and new product development (Instagram, Goodyear Tire).[3][4]

The Lab is best known as the mobile health and start-up Lab at Stanford University, having been the inception of concepts for big name companies such as Instagram, Facebook Apps, and Clubhouse among others. The Lab's alumni network is extensive, deeply rooted, and has actively driven, participated, advised, and/or invested in multiple successful Silicon Valley unicorns and Fortune 500 companies.[5][6]

History

The Lab was originally founded as the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab in 1998 by B. J. Fogg to research computers as Persuasive Technology as part of H-STAR (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute) at Stanford University, which focuses on advancing the human sciences, often in the context of their application to the design and use of information technologies, their influences on people, and with a particular emphasis on education and learning. As a research lab within H-STAR, the Lab performed cutting-edge research into how computing products — from websites to mobile phone software — can be designed to change what people believe and what they do. At the intersection of human-computer interaction and behavior change, the Lab aimed to unlock actionable insights and accelerate the creation of tools to help facilitate positive behavior change across categories below:

  • Human-Centered Tech: Ensuring pervasive safety and health of people over the lifespan with human-centered technology innovations.
  • Security: Solving security and trust problems of computing, communications and information systems at home, work and in governmental affairs.
  • Accelerating Innovation: Accelerating innovation to create and diffusion products and services that better meet today's human needs.
  • Digital Divides: Closing digital divides across class, race, gender, age and nations to provide equal opportunities to learn and work productively for personal and societal well-being.
  • Technology Complexity: Reducing the complexity of information technology to enable its widespread adoption and appropriate use.

In 2002, the Lab created the Stanford Web Credibility Project and led a large study that resulted in the publication How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?

In 2005, the Lab received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support experimental work investigating how mobile phones can motivate and persuade people, an area the lab calls "mobile persuasion.”

Between 2005 and 2009, the Lab became increasingly aware of how traditional approaches to behavior change have not been effective and how most programs that had been created to influence behavior had failed miserably. Recognizing this reality a decade ago, the Stanford Behavior Design stepped away from the tradition and began creating a new way to design for behavior change.

In 2009, the Lab focused on technology to promote peace, which later led to a new group at Stanford called the Peace Innovation Lab.

Between 1998 and 2018, the Lab gradually moved away from Persuasive Technology to focus on Behavior Change methods and models. The Lab advises and encourages anyone looking to design persuasive technologies to review their early and significant contributions on ethics and focus their research and efforts on positive change and helping people succeed and feel successful at doing what they already want to do.[7][8][9][10]

In 2018, the sole focus became Behavior Design, thus resulting in the renaming of the Lab as it is used today. The Lab directed its focus to conduct research advancing Behavior Design methods, models, and maxims that help people do what they already want to do and help people feel successful.[11]

Between 2018 and 2021, over ten different projects have been completed. Current projects are Climate Action,[12][13] Upregulating Positive Emotions, Rosetta Project, and the P.E.P. - The Positive Experience Project.[14]

In 2021, the Lab relocated to Stanford's School of Medicine under the umbrella of Vaden Health Services in the Division of Health and Human Performance (HHP) and within the Stanford Flourishing Project. The affiliation opened new doors to additional computing technology research and real-world impact.[15]

Notable alumni
  • Dean Eckles, scientist and statistician, faculty at MIT[16]
  • Jason Hreah, founder of Persona[17]
  • Ari Qayumi, founder of Mindful Venture Capital[18]
  • Ramit Sethi, founder of GrowthLab.com and co-founder of PBworks
  • Mike Krieger, co-founder of Instagram[19]

Notes

The Lab is committed to improving the methods, models, and applications of Behavior Design, an ongoing process of iteration and learning.

The Lab also collaborates with the Stanford d.School, Stanford Medicine, Stanford GSB, Stanford Environmental Health and Safety, Stanford Engineering, Computer Science Department, HCI and AI Labs, among others.

Behavior Design Lab members and alumni become experts in training other people to use Behavior Design in practical ways and have built capacity in organizations around the world to further help tackle their most challenging problems.

Training others is another way the Behavior Design Lab can scale its impact.

See also

References
  1. "People | Behavior Design Lab". behaviordesign.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  2. "Cardinal Crush clarifies privacy policy, Behavior Design Lab affiliation". The Stanford Daily. February 22, 2020. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  3. Fogg, B.J.; Euchner, Jim (September 3, 2019). "Designing for Behavior Change—New Models and Moral Issues". Research-Technology Management. 62 (5): 14–19. doi:10.1080/08956308.2019.1638490. ISSN 0895-6308. S2CID 203295092.
  4. Fogg, B. J. "I run the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford. Here's how to 'troubleshoot' your bad behavior — or someone else's". Business Insider. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  5. "Notion's COO: Why changing stock prices or valuations don't necessarily reflect the full value you're creating". VentureBeat. September 9, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  6. Solis, Brian (2019). Lifescale: How To Live A More Creative, Productive and Happy Life. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  7. WIRED Staff. "Fiddling With Human Behavior". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 15, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. Fogg, BJ; Cypher, Allen; Druin, Allison; Friedman, Batya; Strommen, Erik (May 15, 1999). "Is ActiMates Barney ethical?: The potential good, bad, and ugly of interactive plush toys". CHI '99 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '99. CHI EA '99. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 91–92. doi:10.1145/632716.632772. ISBN 978-1-58113-158-1. S2CID 7207987.
  10. "May 1999 Table of Contents | Communications of the ACM". cacm.acm.org. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  11. "Welcome | Behavior Design Lab". behaviordesign.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  12. "Behavior Design for Climate Action Training". Behavior Design. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  13. "Behavior Design for Climate Action". Behavior Design for Climate Action. Retrieved April 30, 2022.
  14. "Projects | Behavior Design Lab". behaviordesign.stanford.edu. Retrieved May 1, 2022.
  15. "About Us | Behavior Design Lab". behaviordesign.stanford.edu. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  16. "Embodied Agents On A Website Modelling" (PDF).
  17. Fogg, B. J.; Hreha, Jason (2010). "Behavior Wizard: A Method for Matching Target Behaviors with Solutions". Persuasive Technology. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 6137. pp. 117–131. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13226-1_13. ISBN 978-3-642-13225-4. S2CID 46405967.
  18. "Ari Qayumi | The Pitch 2021 - Constellation Research". constellationr.com. 2021. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  19. Lieber, Cherie. "Tech companies use "persuasive design" to get us hooked. Psychologists say its unethical". vox.com. Retrieved September 11, 2023.
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