Design to Amplify…

We know how hard it is to design programs and products. We’ve been in that 60-hour workweek where it feels like you’re simultaneously putting out fires and waiting for things to happen and you know something isn’t really clicking but you’re not sure why. And on top of the late night calls with the headquarters office, add random electricity cuts and unknown fevers to the mix. Yep, been there.

All that stress can lead to a feeling of frustration that people just aren’t following your great ideas or great program. It’s easy to start thinking that people don’t care, that they’re lazy, or that they don’t want good health or the economic benefits that your program can provide. I’ve talked with health workers, managers, and technical specialists around the world who share that feeling - that people don’t care about their health or livelihoods enough.

But we can all point to examples in our own lives when we haven’t done something we know is good for us. (I can point to thousands of examples in my own life!) And there was probably a program manager or designer out there who was annoyed at me and thought that I didn’t care - that I didn’t care about my nutrition when I had a few extra cookies or that I didn’t care about savings and financial goals when I bought that impulse item.

So just like you can sometimes get frustrated with the clients in your program for not realizing its benefits, people who have designed programs for you have most likely been frustrated with you.

That’s our starting point - that none of us think or act “ideally”. We don’t always act in our own best self-interests or “rationally”. And that’s exactly where behavioral science, behavioral economics, human-centered design, system mapping, and data come in.