Cognitive Design

The former CEO of Zeo, a personal sleep management company, has an interesting blog post on using personal health data to change behavior.  The post summarizes  advice from five years in the trenches and is specific enough to be useful to cognitive designers.

The bottom line is that health  data and advice will change behavior if it is personalized, presents a new view on health,  relates to an immediate concern (e.g. how I look) and is presented in a comparative and visual way.

Devices like Zeo’s have another important feature for changing behavior. They close the loop quick enough to hold my attention. They use sensors, devices and software to measure my behavior and then show me how the adjustments I make produce a change I want or not. If this happens in a fast and visually stimulating way (like it does in video games or speed limit signs that display my driving speed) then behavior change is more likely to take place.

How are you using personal data to drive behavior change?

The internet of things is made up of our current computer-based internet plus a wide range of other devices that have a sensor and can send or receive information.  These other devices include cameras,  personal health monitoring devices,  phones, cars, parking spaces, Christmas trees, appliances in your home, dog collars, power meters, traffic sensors, toys, fire alarms  and many others.  One estimate sees 24 billion devices on the internet of things by the year 2020. That’s more than 3 devices for every person on the planet.

By connecting all  of these things to the internet we enable direct machine to machine (M2M) interactions.  That means one machine controlling or at least communicating with another via the internet. This will also create a river of big data the likes of which we have never seen and enable new services, marketing opportunities and even business models.

Take for example, Budweiser’s Red Light. This device links to the internet via your WIFI and monitors the games of your favorite hockey teams. When a goal is scored it goes off. This enhances the experience of watching the game. A nice example of cognitive design- creating experience value and building brand.  To quote:

“Our mission to get every Canadian closer to the game one goal at a time”

How can you build brand on the emerging internet of things? More generally, what new service and business opportunities does it present?

Internet of Things graphic: IEEE Communication Society Blog

Red Light image: The Classic Install

At Cornell University they have been investigating what type of small changes in eating habits produce lasting weight loss. Several years ago researchers ran a Mindless Eating Challenge involving 2000 participants to try and figure it out. They recently published an article that found:

“The results of this study suggest that online interventions based on small changes have the potential to gradually lead to clinically significant weight loss, but high attrition from publicly available or “free” programs still remains a challenge.”

More specifically, 42% of the participants lost about one pound during the program. Approximately 7% of the participants saw a significant weight loss of 5% or more.  Some gained weight. Impressive results when you realize how small the changes are. Examples that participants found most effective include:

1. Don’t eat directly from a package,  always eat from a dish
2. Put down utensils between bites
3. Keep food out of sight except for healthy items.

These types of changes are easy to make but not for everybody. As pointed out in a Science Daily blog post:

 ”Common barriers that prevented people from making changes included personally unsuitable tips, forgetting, being too busy, unusual circumstances such as vacations, and emotional eating.”

I am working with a physician to develop a solution that addresses most of these barriers.  The solution is a deck of 24 knowledge cards that document  the small changes you can make to achieve healthy weight loss.

You use the cards through a free App called NewHabits.  You can browse through the deck picking the cards that best fit your circumstances. That way the tips are always suitable.  Because the cards are on your iPhone or iPad it is much easier to remember to use them. Cards are designed to fit everyday activities as well as special circumstances (e.g. vacations) and take just minutes to use. That way you can use them no matter where you are or how busy you might be.

Three sample healthy weight loss cards are available in NewHabits.  One is shown above. Download the App (it is free), go to the store and look in the coming soon section for Healthy Weight cards. Give them a try and let me know what you think. We expect to publish the rest of the deck in June.

Google released the specs for their new augmented reality glasses, called Glass,  two days ago.  The glasses come with a 5 mega pixel camera, contain 16 gigs of memory, send sound directly to you inner ear via vibration (no head phones or ear buds) and are synced with cloud storage, your phone and the web.

You speak to the glasses to take pictures, record video and send text messages. Even better you get information from the web that is projected into the transparent rectangle (mini-screen?) on the glasses  about location, directions, flight times and facts (e.g. how long is the golden gate bridge).  You can even do language translations.  To see them in action from Google’s perspective check out How it Feels and from the users perspective these customer videos.

They appear to be very tough and come in a variety of colors including tangerine, charcoal, shale, cotton and sky.  You can’t get a pair yet. They did an early release to 7000 explorers that paid $1500 each. They are slated to be in wide release later this year.

Google ventures has teamed up with several other venture capitalists to form the glass collective. The goal is to provide funding and accelerate the development of  ”new experiences” based on the glass platform.  A major opportunity for ambitious cognitive designers.

Source of images: Glass

For the last several months I have been collaborating with Jason Becker a former student and now COO of RICS software and co-founder of remember.com on developing an App  for using and publishing decks of knowledge cards.  We just launched NewHabits in Apple’s App store!

NewHabits runs on a micro-learning technique and delivers flash cards for behavior change on a wide variety of life, business and social challenges.  The decks are designed to make learning new skills and habits from experience much easier than other techniques.  There are 7 decks in the NewHabits store now, 2 are free and there are 6 more in the pipeline.   These are just seed decks. Many more are possible. We are actively recruiting new authors and offer royalties and free training and support on  how to write decks.  Check out the news release for more details.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad you can still get a detailed look at the App in this screen walkthrough.  I am very interested in hearing from readers with ideas on how to improve the App, use existing decks to meet specific challenges (e.g. organizational change and innovation) or that are interested in authoring new decks.   Knowledge cards are good for forging new personal habits, influencing group change and improving training and coaching.   Please contact me directly at mark.k.clare@gmail.com or 260-433-7923.

About a year ago I did an informal study of how university students use playlists to enhance everyday experiences and performances. This included listening to a personalized list of songs while studying, playing video games, exercising, doing something creative such as drawing or problem framing and relaxing.  I surveyed or interviewed 42 students at two major universities in the US Midwest.   The results were interesting and convinced me that playlist construction and use is a relevant area for cognitive designers. So I am always on the lookout for research into playlists.

For example,  Scientific American has a recent post about the role of playlist in the Psychology of Effective Workout Music.  They site research that reveals:

“Music distracts people from pain and fatigue, elevates mood, increases endurance, reduces perceived effort and may even promote metabolic efficiency. When listening to music, people run farther, bike longer and swim faster than usual—often without realizing it.”

They also provide some advice on how to construct a playlist.  Focus on songs you like,  have a beat that makes your body want to move and that invoke a strong emotional response.  No surprises here but it can take some effort to find music that puts and keeps you in the zone for exercising.  Just Google  ”workout playlist” if you want some examples.

I am interested to hear from readers that have examples of how playlists can enhance experience and performance.

Source for icon:  Findicons.com

The Chief Learning Officer magazine ran a recent article on microlearning - In Learning, Size Matters.   The idea is to deliver bite-sized learning experiences when needed that are fully integrated into work.  The emphasis is on improving performance by learning from immediate experience.  While this may remind some of learning objects, we are now in the era of posts, tweets and smart phone reminders.

The article includes comments from readers, for example:

Parul Gupta: Bite-sized learning is what sticks with learners. Learners are so overloaded with content that a clear, concise and crisp bite of learning is what they cherish. I saw these bites catch fire in a leader-led development program. The small bites of learning should consist of a single topic and need to be extremely well designed.

I’ve seen that too but how do we design microlearning experiences?  One way is the knowledge card model.  In this approach,  we take a particular performance or learning goal and break it down into a set of techniques and behaviors that need to be mastered.  Each card offers a microlearning script for practicing a technique or behavior.  Participants that want to improve get a small deck of cards and start their day by picking one to play. They pick a card that is sure to fit their circumstances.

For example, I recent developed 5 decks that support microlearning the competencies of innovation.   One deck is focused sharpening your observation skills to deepen and broaden what you learn from experience.  An example card:

Something that takes only a few minutes and can easily be integrated into snack or meal time.  This is a microlearning from experience.  Imagine now 24 other such experiences designed to open all five of your senses to drive deeper learning and innovation. Micro changes that accumulate into macro effects, all designed for how our minds naturally work.

Knowledge cards are one way to design and deliver microlearning on a wide variety of topics.  I am interested to hear from readers that are using different designs.

The mighty beverage maker is bringing some of their marketing and branding magic to work on the problem of obesity. Check out their Coming Together video and website.  While the video stresses the many things the company has already done to address obesity – created lower calorie versions of nearly all beverages, made calorie count more visible, restricted beverage offerings in schools to water, juice and low calorie choices, and so on –  it looks to be just the start of a broader campaign.  Check out the get involved and newsletter options in Where do we go from here?

They are already attracting critics that claim the approach is too simplistic or a matter of PR.   One thing is for sure, the changes they have made already avoided the consumption of many millions of calories.  Let’s hope they are serious about using their brand and influence to address our obesity crisis.

I am interested to hear from readers about specific actions Coca Cola can take that will fight obesity while simultaneously improving their bottom line.

Basis has designed a small-steps health behavior change program meant to fit into our daily lives.  You wear a wrist tracking device that  looks like a stylish watch. The device records optical blood flow to measure heart rate, the number of steps you take, perspiration to measure intensity of effort and skin temperature. All of these variables are tracked throughout the day and night, run through some algorithms and displayed in your personal health dashboard.  The dashboard reveals calories burned and other calculated values as well as trends in the physiological measurements.   From the patterns you can spot opportunities to add small-steps into your daily activities to get healthier.  For example:

Adopting simple but powerful healthy habits, such as taking a walk during a coffee break instead of sitting at your desk, are scientifically proven to improve your health.

Definitely an exciting idea from a Cognitive Design standpoint. Modifying existing daily activities rather than making significant and abrupt lifestyle changes has a much lower cognitive load. Plus there is plenty of data and many small-step options that you can experiment with – two essential features of learning new behaviors from experience.

I am interested to hear from any readers that are using Basis.

A lot of my consulting work centers on using cognitive design to encourage health behavior change. Using insights into how our minds actually work, I design messaging, programs, systems, incentives, environments and other artifacts that help people achieve lasting behavior change.  So I am always on the look out for new studies that shed practical light on the issue.

For example, the Customer Experience Matters Blog  has an interesting post that looks at who patients take advice from and what it takes to get them to act on it.   Some of the survey findings are what you would expect (e.g. we trust doctors more than insurance companies when it comes to taking medical  advice) but one surprise is:

“As it turns out, about half of consumers that are satisfied with their recent interactions with pharma companies and health plans are likely to follow medical advice from those firms.”

While about half might not seem like much that is up from less than 10% of those that are not satisfied.

The willingness to act on medical advice jumps up significantly when consumers feel satisfied with the interaction.

This holds true with taking medical advice from doctors too. The percentage increases over 50%!  An important finding as it means patient satisfaction scores play a key role in achieving health outcomes at least when it comes to conditions requiring continued compliance with a treatment plan.