4 ‘Behavioural Design’ Keywords to remember in your Garden Designs.
If you have had a nosey around my website, you’ll have noticed I’m an ex-social science manager. It has absolutely formed me and the way I think about design - for people to thrive, live and engage with spaces and community. It also means I read A LOT of behavioural, sociological and health information over the years. And I love connecting up the pieces.
One of the things I especially have been thinking about is the ways we can use the ideas of behavioural science (or behavioural economics as it’s referred to when people study ways to make people buy things) to help people to do things that are good for them. In our case, it’s be in nature and enjoy their domestic spaces more fully and health-fully.
Honestly, what do we design for, if not for people to use and enjoy the spaces we design?
As such, I’ve put together four keywords that help me “check off” the factors that a behaviour scientist would tell you makes for good behavioural design.
1) MAKE IT OBVIOUS
It should be unconsciously clear to the user what you would like for them to do and how you would like them to do it. This is why we might talk about “indoor outdoor flow”, or ‘leading people through the garden’.This would also be a time to think about sightlines, and drawing the eye outside from indoor spaces. I ask myself, “Does my design make it clear what I would like people to do in this space, and is it clear to them how to get there?”.
2) MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE
Obviously, we want our designs to look nice. I can’t think of a garden designer whose only thought is practicality. Beauty is so necessary for sensory experience and forms the basis of why someone might linger in an otherwise utilitarian space. Marketers are adept at making something seem incredibly attractive, pushing the right buttons and helping people feel “good” about buying their product. Think about the whole industry dedicated to packaging design or the smell of your favourite soap - it’s nice and it makes you feel good to have it.
By placing something interesting and intriguing within a sightline (or a glimpse of something interesting) you are ‘enticing the user to the space.
3) MAKE IT EASY
Behavioural economic theory spends a lot of time considering ways to remove any barriers a person might perceive to be in their way to buying a product. They will employ loads of tricks, workflows ensure the path to the ‘temptation’ is easy to navigate. They might reduce the number of steps you go through once you add an item to your cart online. They might have forms prefilled from your last visit so you don;t need to re-input your credit card. The easier, the better.
Habit theory chimes in here, with the fact that as humans when presented with a set of actions, over the long term, we almost always switch back to the easy option. You’ll see a lot of habit gurus lately talking about small, incremental and ‘easy’ changes to improve your habits- one;s that seem inconsequential in the moment, but slowly progress as time goes on. Why? Because if it is easy you will be far more likely to do it.
Similarly, if our designs offer an easy way to navigate the spaces it is far more likely they will continue to be used and navgated. Can someone step directly out to a leisure space for example? Is the path accessible for their needs? How can we make use of this space so easy they won’t even need to think about whether to use it or not?
4) MAKE IT SATISFYING
In my Dutch heritage ‘Gezellig’ (or similarly hygge in other cultures) is an important value for us. Consequently, my family really values cosy, convivial and ‘homely’ spaces that people can just ‘be in’ together. We find gezellig so satisfying. Of course then, that is reflected in my personal design work. But we also need to ask what our clients value, and how will they be satisfied.
The way our brain works is to value immediate feelings over long-term feelings. It is really hard for us to do things that will help us in the long term if we don’t feel good in the short term. When you feel satisfied with a choice you are more likely to want to do it again. Provide a comfortable moment, make the reward immediate and you will likely get happy and continuous use of your design space.
OBVIOUS - ATTRACTIVE - EASY - SATISFYING
Here’s your challenge, to quickly think it through in one of your current designs and see what that would look like for your clients if you ticked off all the above.
