Embracing Behavior Change: Shifting to Sustainable Mindsets

Transitioning from a linear to a circular economy involves shifting from a take-make-waste mindset to a take-make-circulate one. As stated in Indonesia’s Law Number 18 of 2008, the focus is on transforming from a traditional waste reduction approach to comprehensive waste management. Despite these regulations, implementation has faced challenges, as seen in the common practices of littering and the lack of pre-disposal processing by individuals. Successfully transitioning to this new waste management paradigm requires efforts through promoting behavior change within communities.

Human-Centered Design Framework

According to IDEO, a design thinking company specializing in human-centered design (HCD), HCD is a process that begins with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions tailored to meet their needs. The graph below illustrates that a solution might not work perfectly from the start. It must evolve to align with the changing needs of the target audience.

The essence of the HCD is empathy, which involves understanding the feelings and emotions of others. It’s about recognizing people’s challenges, strengths, and the context of their lives. This is why human-centered solutions are crucial— because ultimately the aim is to create and implement something that genuinely serves the community and addresses our problems as humans.

We will discuss four fundamental principles of the HCD framework, as experienced by one of Sirsak’s co-founders. These principles will be elaborated on in the following section:

1. Begin with the problems, not the solutions

2. Involve the people in designing your solution

3. Create prototype for your solution

4. Iteration is a must

Begin with the problems, not the solutions

Sometimes, we focus so much on implementing pre-existing solutions and trying to apply them to various communities. However, this approach doesn’t always succeed because every community is unique. Even if multiple communities face similar problems, the specific details may require different approaches. This is why empathy is crucial; we need to truly listen and understand each community’s unique needs and circumstances.

One example comes from a project our co-founder worked on, where she aimed to encourage two different communities to start sorting waste at the household level. She discovered that these communities faced distinct barriers to behavior change. Community X, which was very traditional and religious, needed social norms to follow. On the other hand, Community Y consisted of young families with minimal interaction among themselves, so social norms weren’t a significant barrier. Instead, their challenges were investing the time to learn and the money to buy the necessary facilities.

One of the theories about behavior change is the COM-B model, which identifies three essential factors influencing our ability to change behaviors: Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation.

1. Capability

   This refers to an individual’s physical and psychological capacity to engage in a specific behavior, including having the necessary knowledge and skills.

2. Opportunity

   This refers to the external factors that make the behavior possible, including the availability of resources and the social environment.

3. Motivation

   This refers to the conscious and unconscious cognitive processes that direct behavior, including habitual processes, emotional responses, and individual beliefs.

Understanding these aspects will help us to intervene effectively by addressing the specific barriers and facilitators related to behavior change.

Involve the people in designing your solution

After finding out what the problems are, the next step is to design a solution. Co-creation, a process of collaborating with stakeholders, is one of the most important principles in the design phase. This collaboration not only provides valuable insights but also fosters stakeholder empowerment and commitment — especially within the community.

As stated in the previous step, various factors can influence the behavior change journey, potentially creating a gap between intention and actual behavior. To address this, we can use the EAST framework, a practical approach developed by the Behavioural Insights Team to design solutions. This framework emphasizes designing solutions that are Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely (EAST), helping to create effective solutions for the community.

1. Make it Easy

   Behavior change is a challenging process since people are already accustomed to their habits. Therefore, it is crucial to minimize any friction and cost associated with changing behavior. This cost includes not only money, but also time and mental effort. One effective strategy is to utilize the power of defaults (incorporating the change with their accustomed habits), to reduce the friction in adopting new behaviors.

2. Make it Attractive

   As human beings, we tend to act on things once they catch our attention. Therefore, designing engaging solutions can significantly increase the chances of success. Techniques such as gamification, personalized messages, vibrant and colorful visuals, and even incorporating elements like lotteries can make a campaign more appealing and effective compared to traditional black-and-white approaches.

3. Make it Social

   Humans are social creatures who depend on cooperation for survival and often adhere to social norms. Consequently, we are likely to adjust our behaviors when we observe that the majority have done the same. To encourage desired behaviors, we aim to showcase public actions, foster peer-to-peer networks, and promote public commitment.

4. Make it Timely

   Timing is crucial in influencing behavior. We aim to reach people when they are most receptive to change. It’s often easier to modify behavior when existing habits have already been disrupted. For instance, if we want to encourage healthy eating habits, we might target individuals after they return from a vacation.

Create prototype for your solution

Prototyping is the experimental process of turning design ideas into tangible forms, whether physical or digital. Widely used in tech companies, it involves creating a prototype and launching a minimum viable product (MVP) to test the market before releasing the full version. Prototyping helps visualize design concepts and assess user acceptability.

Prototyping helps mitigate the risk of over-investment in both time and money. It allows us to derive more value from the design process by obtaining validation and feedback from users, thereby assessing the usefulness of our solutions.

There are various prototyping methods, including paper sketches, rough website interfaces, and role-playing. Prototyping doesn’t need to encompass the entire solution; it can focus on specific parts to test particular hypotheses.

Additionally, prototyping can enhance empathy by transitioning designs from paper to physical forms, which reduces biases such as confirmation bias — the tendency to emphasize evidence that aligns with our pre-existing beliefs. Early feedback from prototypes helps to validate or challenge these beliefs, leading to more objective insights.

Iteration is a must

Even with a well-executed plan, the results may not always meet expectations. It’s important to approach solutions with the mindset that they may not work perfectly on the first attempt, which helps avoid disappointment. We need to improve, over and over again.

The iterative process of creation and evaluation is fundamental to design. It involves repeatedly refining and testing solutions until they meet the desired standards or until resources are depleted. This ongoing process is essential for achieving optimal results.

At last...

Behavior change is a long journey that requires significant effort. It’s crucial not to give up during the process. Our solutions might not be perfect initially, but observing, learning, and iterating can increase the chances of success and achieve the desired behavior change. After all, we’re dealing with human beings — complex creatures just like us. Embracing the iterative nature of design and continuing to try will help us become better designers. And ultimately, better individuals.

References

https://violyp.medium.com/what-ive-learned-from-2-years-working-for-an-ngo-32429e78081