This week i have refocused on a topic that appeared in my second bloggpost: nudging. Nudging is a technique that many UX designers are already familiar with, as it is a much discussed and sometimes controversial methodology. My primary source of information will be the article “Optimising Nudges in Public Space: Identifying and Tackling Barriers to Design and Implementation”(Bandsma et.al). This article explores what nudging is and how it can be implemented more efficently in public spaces and urban design. I am interested in exploring how it can be used in the context of venue and festival design.
Let us first explore what nudging actually is. Nudging as a defined term was first introduced in the book Nudge (2008) by Richard Thaler and Cass Suntein. They defined it as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives”. So it is about adding or changing things in the physical space to alter behavior, and often with a focus on the subconscious decision making processes. This can for example be adding lines on the ground to remind people to not speed or reminding people what others do and what is the social norm in a situation. However nudging can sometimes have very limited effects, or work counter to what they are supposed to. This is what the article that is my main focus for this week is about.
From the article these are the main nudge tools that exist, to create effective nudges.
| Nudge tools | Description | Nudge category |
|---|---|---|
| Simplification | Make information more straightforward | Educative nudges |
| Framing | Deliberately phrase information so that it leads to a particular decision | Educative nudges |
| Feedback | Provide direct and personalized information | Educative nudges, Incentive nudges |
| Place/group attachment | Appeal to feelings of place attachment or group binding | Educative nudges |
| Saliency | Make a code of conduct more/less visible in public space | Environmental nudge, Incentive nudges |
| Influence physical effort or financial costs | Marginally influencing the amount of physical effort or costs to conduct a behavior | Environmental nudge, Incentive nudges |
| Change option outcomes | Marginally influence the outcomes of behavioral options | Environmental nudge, Incentive nudges |
| No action default | Standard choices lead to an outcome, unless individuals explicitly opt out | Environmental nudge |
| Prompted choice | Force people to actively make a decision, without prescribing what they should decide | Environmental nudge |
| Injunctive & descriptive norm | Prompt information about what most important others do or approve/disapprove of | Social reference nudge, Educative nudge |
| Refer to opinion leader | Ask opinion leaders that are respected/trusted by the target group to disseminate information | Social reference nudge, Educative nudge |
| Commitment strategies | Public commitment that individuals will make a decision | Social reference nudge |
One of the key factors of efficient nudging is to understand the underlying biases and context that lead to a certain type of behavior, and create a nudge that counters this behavior. From the article these are the main barriers to creating effective nudges, this is based on semi-structured interviews with dutch city planners.
| Barriers | Descriptions |
|---|---|
| Design barriers: Barries in the data collection | It is difficult to identify the subconscious cognitive processes underlying the target behavior |
| Overwhelming complexity of human decision-making, as behaviors are the result of many (interrelated) factors | |
| The (cultural/demographic/social) heterogeneity within the target group | |
| Assumptions that behavioral theories cannot help in tailoring a nudge to public space | |
| The use of strategies that are unlikely to provide an understanding of the target behavior | |
| Design barriers: Barriers in how behavioral theories inform nudge design | Nudging is implemented to practice with it or out of curiosity |
| Assumptions that behavioral theories do not significantly improve the effectiveness of nudges | |
| Lack of clarity for which policy issues nudging can be effectively applied | |
| Potential mismatches between the identified cognitive processes and the nudge | |
| Contextual barriers | Preferences among colleagues/stakeholders to implement particular policy instruments |
| Policy guidelines leave little opportunity for experiments with nudging | |
| A lack of time to properly design a nudge |
I think many of these obstacles are very relevant for design of festival spaces as well, but i think also there are some unique aspects to the festival venues that make them very well suited for nudges. The main issue would be properly understanding and implementing them to target certain cognitive behaviors, as most people who work in festivals are not city planners or have extensive knowledge about behavioral psychology. However there are some areas that i think make festival very well suited for this. First and foremost many festival grounds are built from the ground up to accommodate the festival, which give a unique opportunity to build nudges into the area. As well as festival tend to cater to a certain user group, which gives a lot more homogenous group then users of most public spaces. There is also a lot of time that goes into design an area, and opportunity to properly evaluate what did and did not work in previous years.
Another aspect is that there are often a lot of unwanted behaviors at these types of events, littering and public urination are the ones come to mind. Particularly the aspect of trash management at many festival is a huge issue. Therefore it there was a way to implement effective nudges that reduce this, i think that would be very interesting for many festivals and music venues.
Next week i want to continue to explore how nudges can be implemented into physical spaces, and by extension festival grounds and venues.
Koen Bandsma, Ward Rauws & Gert de Roo (2021) Optimising Nudges in Public Space: Identifying and Tackling Barriers to Design and Implementation, Planning Theory & Practice, 22:4, 556-571, DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2021.1962957