Designing for Motivation: Bridging the Gap Between Psychology and Design Practice

My #ICM2018 keynote.

Transcript

1. designing for motivation Bridging the Gap Between Psychology and Design Practice Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets) University of York, Digital Creativity Labs
2. The sage keynote speaker
3. The other keynote speaker
4. a professional boundary-crosser engaging games serious outcomes research design
5. Who here wants to change learning for the better?
6. “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” herbert a. simon, 1969
7. How do we translate motivational research into effective design practice?
8. chapter 1 A Fable
9. meet alberto linguini I want to know how to bake a delicious cake.
10. #Design for Mmmm and Appetite 15-17 August 2018 EARLI/SIG 8 – 16th International Conference on Mmmmmmm 2018
11. Coating required? The Impact of Patisserieness on Taste in Baked Goods
12. low patisserieness medium patisserieness high patisserieness n=128 eaters, standard tastiness inventory (sti) patisserieness positively affects tastiness, p<0.05
13. 12.2 Implications for Cooking 12.2 Implications for Cooking … “For more tasty baked goods, consider a higher degree of patisserieness, such as cupcakes or cakes.” …
14. Nutrition Science
15. Hi, I’m a pastry chef and read your paper. Can I ask you a question? Sure, my pleasure. How do I bake a delicious cake? Our results show that people find high patisserieness very tasty. So how do I do that? Have you thought about baking a cake? Yes. I’m already making a cake. How do I make a delicious cake? Well, make it … very caky I guess?
16. Nutrition Science
17. chapter 2 A Gap
20. how do i best use this in my concrete situation?
21. how do i best use this in my concrete situation? • I teach arts & design, key stage 3, following Biggs’ Design and Make It. I know my kids struggle to engage with the art style session in week 3. Might this be a solution? • Will this work for my 25 8year olds, with 4 class clowns? How do I manage them when they use this for mischief? • How do I embed what specific kinds of feedback, based on my learning goals & material? How do I time & space it? • How do I phrase each prompt? • How do I introduce clickers? Distribute them? Collect them? Maintain them? Fix tech issues? Within 45 min?
22. two different epistemic cultures
23. science episteme design techne/phronesis analyse and abstract real multitudes into decontextualised, universal building blocks, described in data and diagrams. synthesise and specify a single functioning whole within the local context, crafted from objects and actions. ?
24. We literally see the world differently.
25. what you see
26. what designers see
27. environments the view from psychological science people experiences & actions
28. environments the view from psychological science people experiences & actions Single fixed “operationalisation” N of 1 Aggregate measures Universal cognitive constructs & relations Big N
29. environments the view from psychological science people experiences & actions Aggregate data Universal cognitive constructs & relations, incl. perceived intervention
30. environments the view from design people experiences & actions
31. environments the view from design people experiences & actions Detailed design , lots of variants, big N Aggregate measures + qualitative data Personas small N
32. the resulting research-practice gap researcher Can measure & explain mediators designer Can find & refine solutions But how do you derive a fitting, concrete solution? But how do you know if it’s working as thought?
33. you are not alone “Instantiating theory is a difficult task as theoretical constructs lack specificity for concrete design situations.” (Hekler, Klasna, Froehlich et al, 2013, p. 3310) “less than half of the HCI eco-feedback papers referenced behavioral psychology literature and 58% referenced environmental psychology literature. Even more dramatically, no study in environmental psychology referred back to HCI.” (Froehlich, Linklater & Findlay, 2010, pp. 2003-2004)
34. chapter 3 A Promise
35. enter gamification? Deterding et al., 2011
37. a quick equation game design elements motivational affordances behaviour change techniques ≈ ≈ “an active component of an intervention designed to change behaviour ... the smallest component compatible with retaining the postulated active ingredients” (Michie & Johnson, 2013, p. 182) Zhang, 2008; Deterding et al., 2011; Michie et al., 2013
38. the basic theoretical question how do motivation afford action affect design elements ?
39. So how are we doing?
40. we are stuck in groundhog day
41. “A muddle of things we here call ‘design element X’ affect a muddle of things we here call ‘engagement’, unless when they don’t. More research is needed.” the default contribution
42. the issue is in the analytic model design element 2 magic motivation! behaviour design element 1 design element 3 e.g. Hamari, Koivisti & Sarsa 2014
43. science episteme design techne/phronesis ? a.k.a. the issue is analytic modeling
44. #1 specific understandings and uses differ – and matter codecademy van Roy, Deterding & Zaman, accepted khan academy
45. #2 specific contexts differ – and matter 
    500 steps 8th day without cycling – you really should step it up! What about a 5 minute ride today? C’mon, your friends in California did it! Frank & Engelke, 2001, Reeve 1996
46. #2 specific contexts differ – and matter 
    500 steps 8th day without cycling – you really should step it up! What about a 5 minute ride today? C’mon, your friends in California did it! Frank & Engelke, 2001, Reeve 1996
47. #3 specific designs differ – and matter Goveia, Pereira, Karapanos et al., 2016
52. 12 months in …
53. #4 motivational function is systemic-emergent
55. aesthetics Boring end game mechanics dynamics Slow poverty gap +$ ! + -$ ! -
56. aesthetics Boring end game mechanics dynamics Slow poverty gap +$ ! + -$ ! - Function arises from this
57. aesthetics Boring end game mechanics dynamics Slow poverty gap +$ ! + -$ ! - Not this
58. “The life blood of game design is testing. ... Why are we playing games? Because it‘s fun. You cannot calculate this. You cannot test this out in an abstract manner. You have to play it.” rainer knizia, 2010
59. #5 function emerge from person-situation relations difficulty skill/time frustration boredom flow Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
60. “Fulfillment of purpose involves as relation among three terms: the purpose, the character of the artifact, and the environment in which the artifact performs.” herbert simon, 1996
61. #6 functions emerge from functional mechanisms …
62. … that can be instantiated in many ways.
63. locating functions in isolated surface instantiations is cargo cult design
64. … which is neither innovative nor context-fitting.
65. chapter 4 The Challenge
66. Motivation emerges from specific subject- environment relations. tenet 1 Lewin, 1936; Gibson, 1977; Warren, 1984
67. Current “design elements” and similar are therefore too underspecified and atomistic as a construct to reliably predict effects. tenet 2
68. We currently rely on designers to translate our underspecified, general, analytic constructs into local syntheses of specific designs fitting specific contexts and users – giving them insufficient reliable guidance. tenet 3
69. Deterding, in preparation motivational affordance The complex of necessary and sufficient relations of actor dispositions and environmental features that render an action or event functionally significant for a specific motive we need granular, systemic, relational constructs …
70. … fuelling different kinds of questions. Do badges (in aggregare) drive engagement (via achievement motivation)? What complex of necessary and sufficient environmental features and actor dispositions reliably gives rise to achievement motivation? How can these be reliably instantiated under different real-world conditions?
71. and then, we need a linné:
72. an empirically grounded, well-operationalised, well-formed taxonomy
73. this requires large-scale naturalistic observation. Deterding, 2016
74. e.g, contextual autonomy conditions in play situations Deterding, 2016
75. Deterding, 2016 e.g, contextual autonomy conditions in play situations
76. Deterding, 2016 Intrinsically motivated gameplay License to (dis)engage & configure situation Minimized social and material consequence Salient autonomous motives Salient controlled motives + + + – – Construal of action as autonomous + – Temporal field cleared from outer demands Spatial field shielded from public observers + Self-regulation of attention & emotion display Autonomy need satisfaction + + – Spatial field cleared from distraction – + – e.g, contextual autonomy conditions in play situations
77. this needs validation of systemicness via e.g. knock-out designs …
78. … and conceptual replications across multiple designs.
79. this is a massive undertaking.
80. chapter 5 The Opportunity
81. “Facebook has created a laboratory of human behavior the likes of which we’ve never seen.” jad abumrad, 2015
82. At any moment, designers at software companies are running millions of a/b tests to optimise engagement, each an experiment in waiting.
83. the scale for a massive undertaking
84. But to do this, we need to speak with designers.
85. #1 loop research and design
86. “Online hypothesis testing can accelerate both applied and basic Interaction Design Science by making it fast and easy to obtain ecologically-valid measures of the effects of designs on user behavior. Online controlled experiments can help build practical, generalizable, and scientifically-validated theories of how and why designs affect human interactions.” derek lomas, 2015
88. #2 translate findings into practical material & methods
89. #3 test your materials & methods with designer-users
90. #4 conduct action research, PD, PR, DBR, co-design
91. chapter 6 Summary
92. we could seed a new science of motivational design … how do cognitive states affect behaviour affect design features ?
93. but we face an epistemic culture gap. researcher Can measure & explain mediators designer Can find & refine solutions
94. low patisserieness medium patisserieness high patisserieness we need to replace abstract, atomistic constructs …
95. … and cargo cult design …
96. … with more granular, systemic constructs … Deterding, under review motivational affordance The complex of necessary and sufficient relations of actor dispositions and environment features that render an action or event functionally significant for a specific motive
97. … naturalistic, bottom-up observation & modeling, …
98. … and conceptual replication across multiple designs.
99. this is a massive undertaking …
100. … with a matching massive opportunity.
101. which we can realise when we start talking with each other. I want to know how to bake a delicious cake.
102. sebastian@digitalcreativity.ac.uk @dingstweets codingconduct.cc thank you.