HelloWallet Principal Scientist Publishes Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- HelloWallet announces that its Principal Scientist, Dr. Stephen Wendel, has published Designing For Behavior Change, the first step-by-step guide to applying behavioral economics to consumer products that help people change their behavior.

In Designing for Behavior Change, Dr. Wendel develops a new methodology for creating technology products that change and improve human behavior. "Researchers have identified more than one hundred different heuristics our minds use to make decisions, including how to use our competitive spirit to empower people take control of their daily lives," says Dr. Wendel. "Designing for Behavior Change takes the reader through the process of applying those heuristics to the practical problems of product design and development."

Dr. Wendel reviews dozens of innovative products that exhibit principles of his new product development methodology. Examples include Nest and Opower, which help consumers spend less on energy, to Jawbone Up and Fitbit, which help people exercise more, to HelloWallet, which helps employees save for the future and improve their utilization of employer benefits.  

The first component of his methodology translates cutting edge lessons from the behavioral social sciences into everyday language and provides an actionable understanding of how the mind makes decisions. The second component is squarely focused on practice, showing product designers and developers how they too can design products that empower people to take action. The final section discusses how to ensure the products are actually working as intended, the ethical considerations of designing for behavior change, and how focusing on voluntary behavior change makes sense from a business perspective.

Designing for Behavior Change serves as proof that modern day product developers are hungry for knowledge about how to create products that use behavioral science to return the power to the individual and change behavior for good. The book, published by O'Reilly Media, is now available for purchase online at Amazon and O'Reilly.

Contact:
Elisabeth Lesser   
[email protected]
202-803-5254

ABOUT DR. WENDEL Stephen is a behavioral social scientist who serves as the Principal Scientist at HelloWallet, an independent financial guidance company. He conducts original research on financial behavior and coordinates the research efforts of HelloWallet's advisory board of leading behavioral economists and psychologists. He holds a BA from U.C. Berkeley, a Master's from Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he analyzed the dynamics of behavioral change over time.

SOURCE HelloWallet