Rationality, the refuge of the intellectual mind, has been a driver to many endeavours from economics to creativity. Rationality has driven the international style and modernism in early century architecture and still drives the field today. It is the centre of the neoclassical economics. It governs the fields of branding and advertising. Not to mention medicine, politics, law, engineering…

The centre of all these endeavours should be people. People are local beings, cultural beings living within communities, falling to the herd mentality, governed by habit, emotion, shifting states of mind, therefore intrinsically irrationality.

In order for our creative endeavours to be more inherently adoptable they should, think locally, culturally, humanely, in essence capture our irrational beings.

Behavioural Economics

Behavioural economics has emerged as a blend between the world of economics and psychology. It has found its way into the world of advertising through the application of the same methodology in the development and creation of systems aimed at consumer behavioural change. Manifestations of this emergence are seen through a number of TED talks (the global conferences for innovation and excellence), industry lectures, treaties, as well as the establishing of a behavioural economics unit at the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) and publishing of papers on the subject. One of the most vocal advocates of Behavioural Economics is Rory Sutherland, the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, whose TED Talks I have recently come across (http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_perspective_is_everything.html) . Rory is not a behavioural economist but he wants to popularise it and get it into the mainstream. Even though Behavioural Economics is more prevalent now, he says his goal for true mass popularisation would have been reached when Daniel Kahneman (winner of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic in 2002 for his work in developing the  Prospect Theory in Behavioural Economics) is be mobbed by a tour bus filled with enthusiastic star struck Japanese tourists. Maybe having it in songs sung by Justin Bieber pop star types to overenthusiastic teenagers is the answer. What excites me about such lectures is that it backs what I have been advocating, working on and developing with regards to user experience design and how it can affect behavioural change. I have been arguing for holistic & multidisciplinary strategies as the way to approach our designs and creative endeavours in all their forms. Those strategies then manifests themselves through all the various applications and user touchpoints that we can develop. These touchpoints could be either tangible or intangible or both.  Our holistic strategies should be human centred in order for them to render the necessary changes in behaviours and attitudes.

As it stands, when we design we seem assume working in a rational world, guided by pure Euclidean principles and inhabited by perfectly rational human beings. We count upon the notion that the conditions are going to always be optimal to experience our designs whether tangible or intangible. We think that we can choreograph these experiences to fit our ideal predefined pathways.

This is certainly untrue. The reason is that we suppose that rationality and instinctive ‘logic’ are congruent and that everyone will be able to reach the same rational conclusions we did. Nevertheless instinctive ‘logic’ is actually the driver of quite a number of decisions, not rationality. Instinctive ‘logic’ is idiosyncratic.

As an example it is irrational to think that Star Wars is anything beyond a fantasy world created by the fertile imagination of George Lucas and his team. Yet for the fans it is completely logical to unite under the banner of Star Wars, identify with characters, join conventions and even spend huge amounts of money buying paraphernalia that reference or are part of the Star Wars franchise. Therefore in order to influence any behaviour within this group it is important to appeal to the instinctive self rather than the rational self and weave the intended change within the story and timeline of Star Wars so that this behaviour change can become more intuitive and be adopted effortlessly.

Building frameworks

Seeing the importance of our instinctive ‘logic’ in our daily decision making, we should not focus so much on the rationality of our end users. We should help our clients build strategic and experience frameworks that account for the local taste, the element of choice and the shifting nature of our the user’s sense of belonging and decision making state of mind.

Whenever we cater to our global network of clients, whether they are large multinationals or local businesses, we need to think about the frameworks we develop and how these frameworks interact with the end user. The end user is inherently a local with local tastes and local frames of references. Nevertheless the design industry, seems to focus on the ‘human universal’ (the hypothetical person with behavioural traits that are only universal) rather than the human local (the more realistic person whose behaviour is coloured by local cultures, traditions and mindset). The shift in that design framework towards the human local might mean the difference in the adoption and the emotional attachment towards a brand, a corporation, a system, a product or an entity.

McDonald’s has successfully done that by first focusing on developing habit. Its burgers are certainly consistent in their quality and taste around the world. Second it focuses on local taste by adapting its menus slightly differently in different locations, again focusing on habit, whether it is a McKrokette inspired by the kroketten in the Netherlands or McFalafel based on the pervasive deep fried grain balls in the Egypt or the Nürnberger hamburger based on the local speciality in Nuremberg.

The service is also consistent, while catering to local preferences. For example McDonald’s offers valet parking in Beirut, the McExpress walkup window in China serving drinks in malls or 24hr delivery service in Singapore. Therefore McDonald’s focuses on creating a framework within which its end users are comfortable. The framework encompasses the global availability and readiness that McDonald’s is known for, with a local twist to the customer interaction, as well as the famous product accompanied by some local popular street food specialities.

McDonald’s has also been the master of nudging (term used from the book ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness’ written by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein) by combo packaging its products, to super-sizing, to cues and to visual stimuli within the store and beyond. This nudging has become so powerful that now the moment its customers see the golden arches they immediately start feeling hungry.

McDonald’s has been able to bridge the borders between the instinctive ‘logical’ and the rational, the system 1 versus system 2 of its consumers (terms defined Daniel Kahneman in the Dual Process Theory). McDonald’s might not be healthy, but our intuitive ‘logic’ justifies our choice by focusing on the salad we purchased and forgetting the rest of our order: the coke, the burger, and the fries.

Therefore the concept, as demonstrated by McDonald’s, and other such successful brands, is to create frameworks that are flexible enough to allow each user to write their own story within the brand framework. The brand story becomes the culmination of the multitude of their users’ stories constantly changing, growing and overlaying each other to come and represent the brand story as a whole.

The strengths of the user interaction frameworks we develop (whether it is a brand, a communication campaign, a business framework, a digital environment or a physical environment) are thus with the element of choice we offer the end user, whether it is a true choice or the illusion of choice. We all believe we are individuals with complete control over our choices and decisions. Yet our choices and decisions are culturally conditioned by the societies and the groups we belong to or identify with and our inherent ideologies. Some of these belongings are more encompassing and large scaled like national belongings. Others are more shifting whether it is throughout the day or throughout or lifetimes.

For example throughout her day, a woman can be a mother, a business executive, a health-conscious shopper, a community activist, and then again a mother and a wife.  Her mindset, the group of people she is surrounded by, and her objectives change throughout the day depending on the role she is playing at any one point in time. This shape shifting, and focus and refocus from micro to macro and back, determines her behaviour throughout the day. .

The designers in all disciplines, creatives and advertising account executives should concentrate on understanding the context of our multiple beings which is what will allow them to create effective experience design on the strategic level and convincing nudging on the tactical level.

User centred strategies

It is imperative not only to keep in mind the dynamic nature of our end users and target them in frameworks that encompass advertising campaigns and branding strategies for consumer goods and institutions, but also to think within that mindset across all disciplines and market sectors, whether it is a service design, a spatial design, a package, a digital realm and others.

My experience has included designing complex experiences and brand strategies and systems, for entities such as universities, healthcare systems, airports and transportation systems as well as the smallest product applications and touchpoints. It has always been primordial to understand who I was communicating with and who is going to experience the brand or system. From that user perspective I am able to create frameworks of multileveled touchpoints that allow each user to engage and interact with the system according to their own pathway of choice which is flexible and ever-changing. This goes against the idea of choreographing experiences since that type of design forces the user into predesigned pathways which are not flexible and biomorphic. The pathway of choreographed experience forces us into certain behaviours in a more overt manner which users tend to resist. In order to have the users change their behaviours and adopt new ones it has to be more subconscious and operate along gentle and persistent nudging which plays upon the preexisting mental frames of reference of the user as well as their memories allowing them to build new cognitive experiences.

User experience design, is a combination of design creativity, problem solving, anthropology, sociology, psychology, behavioural finance or economics as well as business understanding. The strength of good and successful user experience design is its multilevelled experiencing. It is not only about the communication strategy and advertising, it is definitely not restricted to the digital realm, it surely encompassed the brand, its architecture and its messaging, it absolutely manifests itself in the service design and business model of the client, and naturally expands into the built environment and architecture whether it is as small as a package or a sales touchpoint, or as big as a city.

Therefore we should not only focus on nudging and its effects on a momentary basis, at the point of purchase and from a consumption perspective. Nudging can also be effective on a long term basis to change societal and cultural behaviours, like a small stream of water painstakingly shaping the shape of a rock. The focus here is the ‘system 2’ and the deliberate learning of a behaviour to turn it into a ‘system 1’ which is intuitive action.

Take for example the massive transformation in the Brazilian city of Curitiba lead by the mayor at the time Jaime Lerner, who was an architect/ urban planner by trade. The changes that he has implemented, through his three tenures as a mayor starting in 1972, with very small budgets, has created a framework which turned Curitiba into the most liveable city in Brazil. 90% of its inhabitants would not trade living there, whereby 70% of the inhabitants of Sao Paolo want to live in Curitiba. The changes in behaviour that have been instigated by that framework raised the GDP, the quality of life and the population’s attachment to their city leading to intuitive continuous enhancement emerging directly from the population.

Jaime Lerner focused on developing the city development framework around three issues: Mobility, Sustainability and Tolerance and Social Diversity.

The first issue was tackled through the invention of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) a bus system that operates like an underground, with its dedicated stations (not shelters), lanes, and triple bendy buses. The way it was achievable was through co-responsibility. He approached the private sector asking them to fund the fleets while the city funded the routes and planned the itineraries. Residential development and businesses started developing around the system building a more dynamic and engaged city. The co-responsibility meant that the population, the private sector and the city all had a shared sense of partnership, pride and responsibility in the growth and upkeep of the system. Lerner understood that everything has to work together and that it is about successfully combining living, working and leisure. The transportation system should not act only as the link between those different facets otherwise the public transport will end up being used mainly twice a day at peak hours. ‘If you have a system that works always and connects living and working activities as well as leisure it is more of a city than a corridor of public transport.’ In Curitiba the BRT is the vein system that pumps vitality into the city. It has even lessened car ridership and usage since the cars get stuck in traffic but the buses never do.

In terms of sustainability he made sure to balance ‘the equation between what we save and what we use’. Focusing again on co-responsibility and shared partnership he did multiple interventions that have transformed Curitiba into one of the most sustainable cities. Teaching children how to separate garbage in school has transferred this behavioural shift to their parents who separate household rubbish, bringing down to a minimum the amount of separation needed to be done at the refineries. He engaged with the inhabitants of the slums and again made them partners in the system. The slums were too narrow for the garbage trucks to be able to efficiently collect trash. The inhabitants were throwing their garbage in the streams and on the small roads, the same streams and roads where their children would play. In order to stop that from happening Lerner started an exchange program. For every bag of garbage the inhabitants would take to a specified collection point where the trucks could go, they would receive either bus tokens or grocery bags. Not only has it stopped garbage from being thrown, but it was an incentive for the inhabitants to pick old rubbish and exchange it, creating a second stream of income for the families and getting the streets and streams clean in the process.

Another project was to engage with the fishermen. The deal was any fish the fishermen caught it were theirs to sell, but any garbage they fished from the water was bought by the city. On days where there was no fishing, the fishermen would fish garbage. The more they fished garbage, the cleaner the bay became. The cleaner the bay, the more fish there were. It was a win win situation.

The tolerance and social inclusion was manifested through all of these projects as he did not focus on gentrification and areas of specific income levels. The city was for all Curitibans. One of the projects that demonstrated this point the best, was the creation of new parks. Instead of building concrete walls to try to manage the floods, a method that has demonstrated its inefficiency namely in places like New Orleans, he built parks. These parks have made Curitiba more liveable and green, with nature accessible to all its inhabitants. To reduce the cost of the park upkeep the mowing of the lawns is kept to herds of sheep. Not only is it cheaper but it engages people with more nature in the city and it provides the city with another source of income.

These and many other interventions, whether long term plans or short term ‘urban acupuncture’ interventions engaged the population of Curitiba and changed their behaviour into one of co-partnership with the city, a shared responsibility and a sense of interconnectivity which allowed more grassroots interventions to emerge from within the population operating with the framework (physical and mental) that has been set.

The example of Curitiba demonstrates how a holistic strategy creates a framework which encompassed the different interventions and application, interconnecting them, thus bringing into existence multileveled experiences which constantly engage the users and grows with them.

Experience and its memory

There is value in helping our economic system to become more sensitive to human behaviour, and thus increasing its overall efficiency.  We cannot ignore individual choice, its dynamics and cultural references when analysing decision-making, whether in the simple context of shopping for consumer products, or in the larger context of developing societal systems.

Therefore we should focus on the development of holistic frameworks for our clients through which the end user can interact with their brands, consumer products, systems, policies or environments. These frameworks help change behaviours through a multifaceted experience and gentle nudging which will operate on creating memories that will help shift the user’s mindset. Building memorable user experiences is achievable though a holistic approach, with a cross-pollination of disciplines, under a centralised unifying umbrella, which acts as the facilitation in this multidisciplinary approach.

I believe that our experiences are made up of a continuous string of moments. Each one of these moments is an intersection of what I call the four cardinal points of experience. These four cardinal points are the individual, the community, the physical and the virtual. In order for these moments and intersections to leave a memorable impression and be effective in instigating behavioural change, the user experience should be the junction between human intuitive behaviour and rationality. Most importantly each interaction with the user and each experience they have has to end on a memorable positive note. As Daniel Kahneman reminds us, our experiences are as memorable as the way they end and that their time sequence is not linear but determined by the end of the experience which is what will or will not affect any change in our behaviours.

read the report of the 13 trends breaking through in 2013 by Patricia Martin, including a contribution by Samar Héchaimé of factors ( see trend number 13 – cities become more human by design)

‘The 2013 report focuses on cultural trends poised to break through in the year ahead. It’s designed to inspire anyone wanting to communicate more effectively across touch points.

While the impact of the Internet can be felt in nearly every aspect of consumer life, our focus revolves around its impact on the fabric of society—families, communities, business, education and civic life. This report presents key trends and macro themes that reveal deeper shifts in how people are making decisions and adopting new behaviors that affect how your brand is perceived. On every page is a glimpse of the turning tides that a rising generation of digital natives portends.

Our research yielded 13 break-through trends that open opportunities to build stronger bonds between people and brands: customer loyalty, knowledge transfer, digital rituals, media consumption and consumer expectations around a healthy planet. LitLamp’s consulting team spoke with experts including top researchers, pollsters, designers and creative technologists to better understand the implications; their representative comments are included.

The report wraps up with seven clearly stated ways to use the findings to advance your brand into the future. Progressive, motivated marketers should find inspiration on every page.’

13ThingsBreakingThrough.htm

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands – Rotterdam/ Amsterdam- based urban planning firm, Stipo B.V., just released their new book ‘The City at Eye Level: Lessons for Street Plinths’ and will be available for free download or hard-­‐copy via website on 11 January 2013. The book, a collaborative effort of five editors and 43 professional contributors from the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Demark, USA, UK and Germany, (including Samar Héchaimé of factors) delves deeply into the concepts, philosophy, and strategies behind planning the ground floors (“plinths”) of urban environments. Interviews, case studies, and first-­‐hand stories highlight important examples of best practices from cities in the Netherlands (in particular, Rotterdam) as well as Copenhagen, Antwerp, San Francisco, and elsewhere.

This books shows that good plinths require a smart strategy supported by many players including the city, the owners, the renters and the users, and introduces a host of new vocabularly to help define this innovative planning strategy. A great city at eye level requires a strategy based on three domains: software (use, the experience, the functions), hardware (design of plinths, buildings, streetscapes, hybrid zones and principles of sustainability) and orgware (organisation of functions and portfolio maintenance). The 215-­ page book offers ideas, solutions and examples of the best ground floors and ground-­‐level planning from cities across the world. The concluding chapter proposes 75 specific lessons for good plinths.

On 11 January, 2013, Stipo launched the book to the world in the city where it all started: Rotterdam. About 230 guests, including urban planners, entrepreneurs, housing associations, local civil servants, neighbours, and interested parties, all came together to celebrate. Hosted by several partners (EDBR, AIR, Deltametropool, Gemeente Rotterdam) the launch was open to the public and included a Plinth Safari for all guests-­‐-­‐parallel visits examining the best plinth planning practices in Rotterdam-­‐-­‐as well as a chance to meet a few of the book’s co-­‐authors who were also present for the evening. John Worthington, co-­‐ founder of DEGW and Director of The Academy of Urbanism in London, gave the keynote speech. He focused on how the book is relevant in an international context, in international cities.

The book is available through the publishing house Eburon and will be on bookshelves and Amazon.com in the coming weeks. It is also available for download at www.thecityateyelevel.com.

Food has long been an expression of our cultures and our way of life. That even prompts archaeologists to analyse the contents of tombs to understand how a civilisation lived and survived. The way we have shifted our search for food has fundamentally shifted our societies and the whole experience with food continues to define us till today.

When we travel we always want to experience the local food as a way of getting literally getting a taste of where we are. We call that experiencing the authenticity. The more adventurous of us want to go off the beaten track and try out the restaurants were the locals hang out. By doing so we get to savour a regional flair that tell us stories beyond what we read in the sponsored tourist books. It is even better when we get invited to someone’s home to taste the cooking served at that a particular family table. This not only gives us a taste of the culture of the country in general but also the flavours specific to that small microcosm that is more intimate and personal.

We have seen a lot of shows on the television that highlight that experience of  hidden culinary treasures while travelling to new countries. Take an example Anthony Bourdain’s no reservations. It makes you want to go savouring your way around the planet, exploring unexplored territories and share lives through food.

In most cultures there is a reflection of your acceptance into its midst and home when you are invited to share a meal.

When we first move out of our parent’s homes and go off to live the adventure filled life of a student, it is food whose cost we cut the most. Yet we learn the art of cheap eats and cheap levels. We live by an austerity that somewhat joyous and glorious.  We share our dime concoctions with our friends in these feast like events that were equivalent in our minds to Roman feasts, where boxed wine and laughter were abundant and discussions and plans grandiose. After all it is all a part of what is going to lead us to change the world…

Nevertheless austerity is not only something we enjoy as a glorious and romantic part of getting to adulthood. Austerity and hunger is experience massively around the world by people that can’t find enough to feed themselves and their families. This is not a problem suffered only by faceless sub-Saharan populations with whom we have no connection nor relation. This problem is felt by people around us, in the inner cities and in the suburbs of our big first world cities. Many a child and their parents goes hungry and cold to bed, whether it is in war torn countries or in major world cities.

In our aspirations we always think of the first sign of wealth is when we have plenty and more, when we can throw away. We aspire to become a throw away culture.  We consume without retention and the first sign of our ability to consume is the abundance of food.

The other day I was at the Imperial War Museum in London and there is section in  the museum about the austerity measure with food and rations during WWII. It is not anything that is unusual, nor was it an exceptional measure that the British government followed. Of course what is always amazing is the sense of inventiveness that immerges during these times to keep a sense of culture and taste alive. With the little rations of food supplies how can you change the recipe of pudding to still feed the whole family and try not to sacrifice on the taste. How can  you become entrepreneurial and barter with your neighbour with what they have that you need and vice versa. How can you save by growing your own food. It was a way of thinking and a way of life that was adopted by everyone and survived even a few years after the war.

Today we have lost touch with that sense of urgency that had emerged during the war. We have also lost touch with where our food comes from. Our children have no connection with the earth as a source if their food and thus have no qualms on throwing away without understanding the repercussion of every thrown morsel and discarded scrap. In our sense of getting over the austerity we wanted our children to never feel the want and did not teach them the value of that abundance.

There has been a rise to green movements with varied degrees of involvement, from the policy driven to the militant who live what they preach.

Nevertheless sustainable thinking and way of life only works with an interconnection and an understanding of the cycle from the source to the end, and how it related to us, to our lives. We can’t get active about something that doesn’t touch us directly.

Mobilisation and austerity measures in WWII worked because the causes and effects were felt by every person in the United Kingdom. I am not romanticising the effects and saying everyone became diligent and did not try to profit of the situation. Profiteering is something you will see in every situation unfortunately.

In order for us to see a change in tide in relation to sustainable living and sustainable development we need to have to feel a threat to our ways of life and especially to our food. We also need to feel a direct cause and effect for us to perform changes to our life and make them sustainable. Of course the best ways to perform changes in society are to go through the children. We have seen its adverse effects on how political movements have been able to really take hold when they targeted the children and the young. We also have seen its positive effects when children were mobilised to help bring in a greener way of life into the home in places like Curitiba in Brazil.

For example having markets all over the city, closer to where we live rather than destinations to the urban initiated organic militants, is a way to help children and young people connect with food and its source. The food experience is an interconnected sensory and sensual experience. It takes us over and immerses us. If it is seen as just sustenance might as well just distribute protein pills to everyone. But our taste buds would protest. They would have us have craving and would water just at the thought of something that we know tastes good.  These markets would spread the smell of raw foods and would connect it with the smell of the earth. As a child my favourite smell is that of the earth after the first rain of autumn. You could smell how alive earth is. You could feel it breathe. You could see it crawl with little animals. You see their trail lace over the brown fresh earth. And you could gather these little animals so that you could help your grandmother transform them into dinner. For me those snails are still probably some of the tastiest meals I have had. Same held true to every salad and every cake make out of the fruits and vegetables grown in my grandmother’s garden. She gave me my first lessons in cooking and showed me how it is about flair even in time of austerity.

Understanding that cycle what we need to understand how to help our planet not only survive but flourish in the future. Having our children experience and engage in it is a legacy we give them to the future. It should be the battle that mobilises all of us in a way that is intrinsic to our daily lives. It should not be something so hard for us to do that we just don’t do it. But in order to do it is should matter. It should make us do it. It should engage us like our grandmother and great grandmothers were engaged and mobilized without thinking of themselves as militants. This is what they HAD to do for US.

Food should be part of the education and the culture. There used to be home economics in schools which has now been removed. Home economics would teach us the basic logic of the economics of the home and how to make it sustainable. It allowed us to understand the connections with the food and the sustenance. It allowed us to bring in the creative solutions to solve the problems we might encounter in the home. I not only believe we should bring back home economics into the schools but I also believe cooking classes should be brought into the schools. It allows our children to understand the connectivity of raw food, its sources and the food that we have at the dinner table. But it also allows them to understand chemistry, physics and math in the most practical manner same as they are doing in the charter schools with the forensic experiments.

What if all those manicured lawns are also transformed into urban agriculture land. What if you could actually smell food growing closer to where you lived rather than having to have a trip to the countryside to connect with nature. What if the facilities and options to grow small plants were integrated into our flats and homes and onto the roofs of our buildings. What if we really created all these suspended gardens that made the fame of Babylon. Not only will we be more connected to the food we eat but literally we will be closer to the oxygen we breathe.

What if the austerity measures that the government was enforcing due to the economical downturn actually leads us to a richer life of health and abundance since it will teach us to be reconnected with the sources of our food and sustenance….

Museums also have a big role to play in all of this. Take the example of the exhibit on the mobilisation and the austerity of WWII. This could accompanied by interactive experiments and courses that teach us how our grandmothers and their mothers used their imagination and got through the though time while trying not to sacrifice on health. It could teach us how to prepare food. It could teach us about our tastes and culture through food. How it has been preserved or dissipated through the ages. It could teach us the meaning of truly being a community since cooking with someone and eating with them is not something you do with just anyone. You will not invite a stranger to your table to your kitchen, and if you do that person will not be a stranger for long.