Designing salient and supportive systems for proximal behaviors.

Designers should create salient reminders and support mechanisms to help users stick to near-term plans by reducing participation costs and increasing belief in the ease of tasks.

About this paper

The author conducted two studies to understand how temporal distance affects planned behavior, finding that attitudes become more important for distant events while perceived behavior control influences intentions regardless of timing.

These findings advance the Theory of Planned Behavior and provide strategies for designers and event organizers to motivate behaviors over different timeframes.

Here are some methods used in this study:

Within-Subjects Experiment Between-Subjects Experiment

Which part of the paper did the design guideline come from?

“We hypothesized that people tend to have a higher intention to perform the behavior in the far future compared to near future (H5). Results of the paired-samples t-test show that the mean of willingness to attend the yoga class differs a month before the event (M=.80, SD=.41) and a few days before the event (M=.60, SD=.49) at the .01 level of significance (t=2.70, df=29, p<.01, 95% CI, for a mean difference .05 to .35, r=.62). We should point out that in the end, only 6 participants actually (...)” (‘Change in Intention Over Time’ section)

Suh, M. (Mia), & Hsieh, G. (2016). Designing for Future Behaviors. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Inspiration and scope

In this paper, the authors examined designers and event organizers' roles in encouraging proximal behaviors or adherence to near-term plans.

You are designing for emerging entrepreneurs launching start-ups. Your design context and the paper's context differ: the paper focuses on those familiar with design practices, while you target entrepreneurs with varying business tool familiarity. At the same time, both aim to encourage specific user behaviors: near-term actions in the paper, and entrepreneurial actions and decisions in your design. Both benefit from engagement features like gamification, reminders, and progress tracking.

Also, they differ in that the paper prioritizes immediate actions, while your context supports entrepreneurs in long-term start-up processes, needing features for goal setting and long-term planning. At the same time, both contexts benefit from actionable insights guiding decision-making. For the academic context, insights promote participation and adherence through clear steps and feedback. Similarly, your dashboard guides entrepreneurial decisions and strategies, ensuring user support.

Leveraging these similarities, design a tailored all-in-one dashboard for emerging entrepreneurs. This system can enhance engagement, provide actionable insights, and support decision-making, ultimately aiding in start-up success.

Your input

What: all in one dashboard system
Who: emerging entrepreneurs trying to launch their start-up
Design stage: Research, Ideation, Evaluation

Understanding users

The following user needs and pain points may apply to your design target as well:

Enhanced Progress Tracking

Integrating enhanced progress tracking in the dashboard would help users visualize their achievements and how close they are to their goals. This feature encourages continuous engagement by making progress tangible and rewarding.

Actionable Feedback for Decision-Making

Providing users with real-time, actionable feedback can significantly aid decision-making processes. This involves delivering clear steps and insights tailored to the user's current context and goals, thus empowering them to make informed choices.

Design ideas

Consider the following components for your design:

Integrate customizable gamified milestones to maintain user engagement.

Include AI-driven, context-aware reminders and action items.

Implement visual progress tracking with a balanced scorecard approach.

Methods for you

Consider the following method(s) used in this paper for your design work:

Theory Of Planned Behavior (TPB)

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior can help identify factors like attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control that influence emerging entrepreneurs' intentions to use a dashboard system. When applying this methodology, ensure that you account for variables like positive evaluations, social pressures, and the perceived ease of using the dashboard.

Construal Level Theory (CLT)

Applying Construal Level Theory in your research and ideation stages can help explore how emerging entrepreneurs perceive short-term versus long-term benefits of your dashboard system. Keep in mind that distant future behaviors are seen abstractly (why) while near-future behaviors are seen concretely (how).

Metrics for you

Consider the following metric(s) used in this paper to evaluate your design work:

Behavioral Intention

Measuring behavioral intention helps to predict how likely users are to follow through with future behaviors, giving insights into their commitment levels. Designers should consider how different design choices can improve the intention rate, especially in the planning and motivational stages for emerging entrepreneurs.

Perceived Behavioral Control

Evaluating perceived behavioral control can provide insights into the factors that might facilitate or hinder users' ability to perform a behavior, including resources and obstacles. It's crucial to design the dashboard to enhance users' perceived control, particularly important during the early stage of entrepreneurship when resources might be limited.

[Figure 2] From this figure, you can grasp how Construal Level Theory (CLT) might affect user cognition and decision-making, which can be insightful when designing a dashboard for emerging entrepreneurs.