TY - GEN
T1 - Creating Content That Influences People
T2 - Considering User Experience and Behavioral Design in Technical Communication
AU - Verhulsdonck, Gustav
AU - Shalamova, Nadya
N1 - Funding Information:
We want to acknowledge the reviewers of this journal for their input leading to the final version of this article, and Dr. Kirk St. Amant for his encouragement in developing this into an article. Certain ideas noted in this work arose from discussions at the 2018 Louisiana Tech Usability Studies Symposium (LATUSS), an event sponsored by the Eunice C. Williamson Endowment Fund.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - As people today use information products in contexts with distractions, we need to design for people’s attention. User experience design routinely relies on behavioral design to engage distracted users and nudge them toward specific behavior. Although practiced in user experience design, behavioral design is less known in technical communication. In this article, we use the CHOICES (Context, Habits, Other people, Incentives, Congruence, Emotions, and Salience) framework developed by McKinsey’s Behavioral Lab to introduce students to learn about behavioral design principles that make use of cognitive biases to influence people. We maintain that behavioral design is useful for technical communicators because they create digital assets that are part of the user experience.
AB - As people today use information products in contexts with distractions, we need to design for people’s attention. User experience design routinely relies on behavioral design to engage distracted users and nudge them toward specific behavior. Although practiced in user experience design, behavioral design is less known in technical communication. In this article, we use the CHOICES (Context, Habits, Other people, Incentives, Congruence, Emotions, and Salience) framework developed by McKinsey’s Behavioral Lab to introduce students to learn about behavioral design principles that make use of cognitive biases to influence people. We maintain that behavioral design is useful for technical communicators because they create digital assets that are part of the user experience.
KW - behavioral design
KW - behavioral economics
KW - pedagogy
KW - technical communication
KW - usability
KW - user experience design
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090789441&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0047281619880286
DO - 10.1177/0047281619880286
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090789441
SN - 0047-2816
VL - 50
SP - 376
EP - 400
JO - Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
JF - Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
ER -