Abstract
Designing solutions for complex behaviour change processes can be greatly aided by integrating insights from the behavioural sciences into design practice. However, this integration is hampered by the relative inaccessibility of behavioural scientific knowledge. Working in a multidisciplinary of design researchers and behavioural scientists may bridge the gap between the two fields. This paper shares our experiences in working as such a multidisciplinary group on a large project, amongst others consisting of the design of interventions for workplace safety. Our cooperation was fruitful, both for design researchers – being able to better structure the messiness of the design process, behavioural scientists – gaining in ecological validity of their methods , and commissioners – increased trust in potential outcomes of the design process. However, difficulties preventing synergy also transpired.
Keywords
behaviour change; theory-driven design; multidisciplinary design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.17
Citation
Hermsen, S., van der Lugt, R., Mulder, S., and Renes, R. (2016) How I learned to appreciate our tame social scientist: experiences in integrating design research and the behavioural sciences, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.17
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
How I learned to appreciate our tame social scientist: experiences in integrating design research and the behavioural sciences
Designing solutions for complex behaviour change processes can be greatly aided by integrating insights from the behavioural sciences into design practice. However, this integration is hampered by the relative inaccessibility of behavioural scientific knowledge. Working in a multidisciplinary of design researchers and behavioural scientists may bridge the gap between the two fields. This paper shares our experiences in working as such a multidisciplinary group on a large project, amongst others consisting of the design of interventions for workplace safety. Our cooperation was fruitful, both for design researchers – being able to better structure the messiness of the design process, behavioural scientists – gaining in ecological validity of their methods , and commissioners – increased trust in potential outcomes of the design process. However, difficulties preventing synergy also transpired.