How behavioral science can boost your designs

150: People do not always behave logically. We say one thing and then do something else. We even go against our instincts.

Welcome to this week's 🔥 subscriber-only 🔥 edition of Alex's Camp. Each week I explore design’s interplay with product, business, and technology, and answer your questions about freelancing, career, and personal growth.

The study of these behaviors is known as behavioral science. At the convergence of psychology and economics, it investigates the impact of cognitive, emotional, and social factors on decisions and, ultimately, behaviors.

Behavioral science helps product designers understand how people establish habits, how social norms and cues influence them, and how they respond to various forms of feedback.

I'll show you real-world examples of tests that demonstrated significant shifts in conversion rates when the behavioral design was used to drive product design—and why they worked—to help you better your own product.

Proceed with caution, of course. We do not recommend simply dragging and dropping these concepts into your product without first investigating whether or not they work in your situation.

Default Bias

Default bias suggests that people tend to stick with the default option presented to them.

In UX design, this concept is applied by setting desirable options as defaults, such as pre-selecting the most commonly chosen option or highlighting the recommended choice.

By doing so, designers can nudge users towards certain actions.