All design influences our behaviour, but as designers we don't always consciously consider the power this gives us to help people, (and, sometimes, to manipulate them).
There's a huge opportunity for design for behaviour change to address social and environmental issues where people's behaviour is important, but as yet little in the way of a guide for designers and other stakeholders, bringing together knowledge and examples from different disciplines, and drawing parallels which can allow concepts to be usefully transposed.
The Design with Intent toolkit aims to make a start, however small, on this task.
Design with Intent means design that's intended to influence or result in certain user behaviour — it's an attempt to describe lots of types of systems (products, services, interfaces, environments) that have been strategically designed with the intent to influence how people use them. This reflective approach can be valuable for designers: being aware that we're designing not just products, not just experiences, but actually designing behaviour at one level or another. Whether we mean to do it or not, it's going to happen, so we might as well get good at it — and understand when it's being done to us.
The Design with Intent toolkit has evolved from being an attempt at a very structured, TRIZ-like method for prescribing particular design features to address specific target behaviours, to something which is effectively a very loose idea generation tool, provoking design ideas by asking questions and giving examples of particular principles in action. This evolution is a direct result of iterative improvement through running workshops with designers, and seeing what works and what doesn't, and what's usable and what isn't.
Free to download (PDF, wiki and iOS app) from http://designwithintent.co.uk (printed copies can also be ordered)
I am the author, so biased, but the methods and approaches used by the service design community have been of great benefit while developing the toolkit. Reviews of earlier prototypes by practitioners from companies such as live|work and Engine directly influenced the form the project took, and the final version is intended to be just as applicable in service design as in product and interaction design.
I am the author, so biased, but the methods and approaches used by the service design community have been of great benefit while developing the toolkit. Reviews of earlier prototypes by practitioners from companies such as live|work and Engine directly influenced the form the project took, and the final version is intended to be just as applicable in service design as in product and interaction design.
Satish Kumar Beellaon September 13, 2012 2:51pm
Very well developed method, eventually the cards and the instructions. I am using it for interaction design in combination of service design. To be precise I am using it for creating user pattern/functionality in the context of vehicle2home systems. My focus is to influence and benchmark the behaviour and at the same time design the interaction between two 'touch points'.
Design with Intent: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design By Dan Lockton, David Harrison, Neville A. Stanton
Share your perspective. Does this book belong in the service design canon? What are the most important points to take away? Please share any links to reviews or other information regarding this book or its themes.
Design with Intent 
