Complexity Theory
The study of complex systems and how interactions within these systems give rise to collective behaviors. Useful for understanding and managing the complexity in design processes and systems.
172 topics found for:
“system behavior”
Behavioral Audit
A systematic evaluation of behaviors within an organization or process to identify areas for improvement and ensure alignment with goals. Crucial for understanding and improving user behaviors and organizational processes.
Behavior Enrichments
Modifications or additions to a system that encourage specific user behaviors. Important for guiding user actions and improving the effectiveness of interactions.
MBSE
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a methodology that uses visual modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, and validation activities throughout the development lifecycle. Essential for managing complex systems, improving communication among stakeholders, and enhancing the overall quality and efficiency of systems engineering processes.
Tiny Habits
A behavior change method that encourages the adoption of small, easy-to-do habits that can lead to larger, sustainable behavior changes. Important for designing systems that support gradual and sustainable behavior change.
Peltzman Effect
The hypothesis that safety measures may lead to behavioral changes that offset the benefits of the measures, potentially leading to risk compensation. Crucial for understanding risk behavior and designing systems that account for compensatory behaviors.
o11y
Numeronym for the word "Observability" (O + 11 letters + N), the ability to observe the internal states of a system based on its external outputs, facilitating troubleshooting and performance optimization. Crucial for monitoring and understanding system performance and behavior.
Use Case
A detailed description of a system's behavior as it responds to a request from one of its stakeholders, often used to capture functional requirements. Essential for understanding and documenting how users will interact with a system to achieve their goals.
Restraint Bias
A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate their ability to control impulsive behavior, leading to overexposure to temptations. Important for designing systems that help users manage self-control and avoid overexposure to temptations.
Chaos Theory
The study of dynamic systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, leading to unpredictable behavior. Important for recognizing and managing unpredictable elements in design and development processes.
Homo Economicus
A theoretical concept in economics that portrays humans as rational and self-interested agents who aim to maximize their utility. Important for understanding economic decision-making and designing systems that align with rational behavior.
Pain Of Paying
The psychological discomfort experienced when parting with money, influenced by the payment method and context. Crucial for understanding spending behavior and designing payment systems that mitigate discomfort.
Secondary Reinforcer
A stimulus that gains reinforcing properties through association with a primary reinforcer, such as money or tokens, which are associated with basic needs. Essential for understanding complex behavior reinforcement strategies and designing effective reward systems.
Extrinsic Motivation
The drive to perform an activity due to external rewards or pressures rather than for the inherent enjoyment of the activity itself. Important for designing systems that effectively use external incentives to motivate user behavior.
Probability Matching
A decision-making strategy where individuals allocate resources proportionally to the probability of an outcome occurring, rather than optimizing the most likely outcome. Important for understanding decision-making behaviors and designing systems that guide better resource allocation.
Hyperbolic Discounting
A cognitive bias where people disproportionately prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, later rewards. Important for understanding and designing around user decision-making and reward structures.
Behavioral Game Theory
The study of strategic decision making, incorporating psychological insights into traditional game theory models. Useful for understanding complex user interactions and designing systems that account for strategic behavior.
Continuous Reinforcement
A schedule of reinforcement where a desired behavior is reinforced every time it occurs, promoting quick learning and behavior maintenance. Important for designing systems that encourage consistent user behavior.
Reward Substitution
A strategy where less immediate or tangible rewards are substituted with more immediate or tangible ones to encourage desired behaviors. Important for designing systems that leverage immediate incentives to promote long-term goals.
Extinction Burst
A temporary increase in the frequency and intensity of a behavior when reinforcement is first removed. Useful for understanding user behavior changes in response to modifications in design or system features.
Licensing Effect
A cognitive bias where people allow themselves to indulge after doing something positive, believing they have earned it. Important for understanding user behavior and designing systems that account for self-regulation.
Persuasive Technology
Technology designed to change attitudes or behaviors of users through persuasion and social influence, but not coercion. Crucial for designing systems that effectively influence user behavior while maintaining ethical standards.
Postel’s Law
A principle stating that a system should be liberal in what it accepts and conservative in what it sends, meaning it should handle user input flexibly while providing clear, consistent output, similar to the principle of fault tolerance. Essential for designing robust and user-friendly interfaces that accommodate a wide range of user inputs and behaviors while maintaining reliability and clarity in responses.
Incentive Theory
A theory of motivation that explains behavior as driven by a desire for rewards or incentives. Crucial for designing systems that effectively motivate and engage users.
Captology
The study of computers as persuasive technologies, focusing on how they can change attitudes or behaviors. Important for designing systems that effectively influence user behavior ethically.
Mental Accounting
A behavioral economics concept where people categorize and treat money differently depending on its source or intended use. Crucial for understanding financial behavior and designing systems that align with users' mental accounting practices.
Trigger
A prompt or cue that initiates a behavior or response, often used in behavior design to encourage specific actions. Crucial for designing systems that effectively prompt desired user behaviors.
Prospect Theory
A behavioral economic theory that describes how people choose between probabilistic alternatives that involve risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known. Crucial for understanding decision-making under risk and designing systems that align with user behavior.
Adaptive AI
AI systems that can dynamically adjust their behavior based on new data or changes in the environment. Important for developing systems that can respond to real-time changes and improve over time.
Allais Paradox
A decision-making paradox that shows people's preferences can violate the expected utility theory, highlighting irrational behavior. Important for understanding inconsistencies in user decision-making and designing better user experiences.
Functional Specification
A document that defines the functionality, behavior, and features of a system or component. Important for providing clear requirements and expectations for product design and development teams, ensuring alignment and successful project outcomes.
Disinhibition
The reduction of restraint in behavior, often due to the absence of social cues, which can lead to impulsive actions and emotional outbursts. Important for understanding user behavior in online and anonymous contexts.
Incentivization
The process of providing incentives or rewards to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user behavior and increasing engagement.
Dual Self Model
A behavioral economics model that explains decision-making as a conflict between a present-oriented "doer" and a future-oriented "planner". Useful for understanding user decision-making and designing interventions that balance short-term and long-term goals.
Premack Principle
A strategy where engaging, preferred activities are used to motivate users to complete less engaging, necessary tasks. Useful for designing user interfaces and experiences that encourage desired behaviors by leveraging more enjoyable activities as rewards.
Seven Stages of Action
A model by Don Norman outlining the cognitive steps users take when interacting with a system: goal formation, planning, specifying, performing, perceiving, interpreting, and comparing. Important for designing user-friendly and effective products by understanding and supporting user behavior at each stage.
Reward Power
The ability to influence others' behavior by offering positive incentives or rewards, commonly used in organizational and social contexts. Crucial for understanding dynamics of motivation and influence in team and organizational settings.
Implementation Intentions
A self-regulation strategy in the form of "if-then" plans that can lead to better goal attainment and behavior change. Useful for designing interventions that promote positive user behaviors.
Information Ecology
The study of the relationships between people, practices, values, and technologies within an information environment. Helps in understanding and designing systems that are sustainable and adaptive to human and environmental changes.
Opportunity Cost Neglect
A cognitive bias where individuals overlook or underestimate the cost of opportunities they forego when making decisions. Crucial for understanding user decision-making behavior and designing systems that highlight opportunity costs.
Myopic Loss Aversion
A cognitive bias where individuals tend to avoid risks when they perceive potential losses more acutely than potential gains. Important for understanding decision-making behavior in users and designing systems that mitigate risk aversion.
Negativity Bias
The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones. Crucial for understanding user behavior and designing systems that balance positive and negative feedback.
Overconfidence Effect
A cognitive bias where a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is greater than their objective accuracy. Crucial for understanding user decision-making and designing systems that account for overconfidence.
User Control
The ability of users to influence the behavior and outcomes of a system or product, allowing them to interact with it according to their preferences. Essential for creating user-friendly interfaces that allow for flexibility and customization.
Principle of Objects
The Principle of Objects is an information architecture guideline that treats content as living, distinct entities with behaviors and attributes. Crucial for creating modular, reusable, and flexible content structures.
Effort Justification
A cognitive bias where people attribute greater value to outcomes that required significant effort to achieve. Useful for designing experiences that recognize and reward user effort and persistence.
Dual Process Theory
A framework suggesting there are two systems of thinking: System 1 (fast, automatic) and System 2 (slow, deliberate), influencing decision-making and behavior. Crucial for understanding how users process information and make decisions.
Micro-Incentive
Small rewards or incentives given to users to encourage specific behaviors or actions. Important for motivating user engagement and fostering desired behaviors.
Informational Influence
The change in opinions or behavior that occurs when individuals conform to the information provided by others. Important for understanding social dynamics and designing systems that leverage social proof and peer influence.
Standard Economic Model
A theoretical framework in economics that assumes individuals act rationally and seek to maximize utility, used to predict economic behavior and outcomes. Important for understanding traditional economic theories and designing systems that account for rational decision-making.
Soak Testing
A performance testing method that evaluates the system's behavior and stability over an extended period under a high load. Essential for identifying memory leaks and ensuring the reliability and performance of digital products under prolonged use.
Introspection Illusion
A cognitive bias where people wrongly believe they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. Important for designing experiences that account for discrepancies between user self-perception and actual behavior.
Ostrich Effect
A cognitive bias where people avoid negative information or situations, preferring to remain uninformed or ignore problems. Important for understanding user behavior and designing systems that encourage proactive engagement.
Normalcy Bias
The tendency to believe that things will always function the way they normally have, often leading to underestimation of disaster risks. Important for understanding risk perception and designing systems that effectively communicate potential changes.
External Cues
Environmental signals that influence behavior and decision-making, such as signage, prompts, or notifications. Useful for designing environments and systems that effectively guide user behavior.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
The tendency for individuals to continue a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources (time, money, or effort) rather than future potential benefits. Important for understanding decision-making biases and designing systems that help users avoid irrational persistence.
Social Proof
A psychological phenomenon where people follow the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. Essential for designing interfaces and experiences that leverage social influence to guide user behavior and increase trust and engagement.
Social Foraging
The behavior of seeking information or resources based on social interactions and cues. Important for understanding how users gather information in social contexts and designing systems that support collaborative information seeking.
Intertemporal Choice
The study of how people make choices about what and how much to do at various points in time, often involving trade-offs between costs and benefits occurring at different times. Crucial for designing systems that account for delayed gratification and long-term planning.
Flexibility-Usability Tradeoff
A principle stating that as the flexibility of a system increases, its usability often decreases, and vice versa. Crucial for balancing versatility and ease of use in design.