Nudge: Choice Architecture

Chapter 5 (Conclusion to Part I)
Choice Architecture

   Choice Architecture brings the conclusion to the Part 1 of the book 'Nudge.' It starts out with an example from one of the authors, Thaler. He teaches at a college and the door to his classroom has a wooden handles. Instinctively, how would you open the door? You don't push handles, do you? You're supposed to grip the handle and pull it. The architecture for the big door confused many people because that door must be pushed. The natural way of thinking is to push a door when leaving but with the handles, this could be an exception. Handles are meant to be pulled, so your mind tells you to pull open the door. But it doesn't budge, then you push the door, realizing your mistake you must feel pretty embarrassed. Especially this one student in Thalers class who pulled the door, truthfully it's pretty hard to tell whether to push or pull in this situation. This architecture doesn't follow the law of a psychological rule, 'Stimulus Response.'  What is your stimulus response? It is the way of something that you get used to. As we are humans, we err and make many mistakes in our lives, especially when we let our Automatic thinking take control. In order to combat this, more thoughtful people would consider the Reflective thinking for a rather thought of way. An example is saying what color one would see at your computer screen, sounds simple. Then add a the name of a different color like GREEN on a background color of blue. This will make you think more than if it wasn't there. I have a little test for you, follow the directions below:

- Tell me what color you see in thats shaded in the background but ignore the text (or try to), answer each question in three seconds (Do this fairly, you would just be cheating yourself if not). This test is created by me.

RED        


GREEN   


BLUE      


BLACK   


YELLOW


   Lets spice things up a bit, tell me the color of the text, like what color it is but not what color it says.

BLUE      


PURPLE  


YELLOW


 Did you solve this? If so then kudos to you! It might not be hard if you take a glance at it but on real professional ones it would. This is just to give you a taste of what this is like. There is something exactly like this on 'Brain Age' for the Nintendo DS.

  No architecture has nudged so many people in the world than Amsterdams 'Fly in the Urinal.' It is very effective and stopped 80% of spillage in bathrooms. Cleaners must've complained of the amount of spillage in bathrooms and eventually engineer Doug Kempel experimented with a fly sticker and put it on the urinal. Later he brought it to the public and results were a hit! Orders were made online for this fly sticker and were used in schools, libraries, and mostly airports. Lousy aiming was stopped when the fly was spotted on the urinal, it sounds funny but was a major success. Doug specifically said," My goal is nothing less than to save the world, one urinal at a time." Well his goal is working and this fly sticker is seen commonly in America, Moscow, Holland, Singapore and many other countries. 80% less spillage is a lot, really!

  Defaults are something that is already there if nothing is custom or selected. As the Automatic thinking side is stronger and more powerful than our reflective side, we tend to like defaults. How does the automatic thinking function the way we like defaults? Lets look at the facts of behavior analysis. But before we do that, what is behavior analysis? Behavior analysis is a type of psychology that is based on the behavior of something, mostly the way we humans act and behave. If you look at it in a way, behavior means the pattern or way one behaves whilst analysis means a study or to research. Now back to the question, automatic thinking function the way we like defaults because we like things that require the least work possible. Who wouldn't like to get a million dollars or cash in seconds rather than in fifty-years. Defaults assist us in many ways, take the defaults of your computer or laptop. When you go to the bathroom, the computer will automatically dim the display light and eventually the screensaver will show or otherwise it would go to sleep. This is a default, very simple to understand. In full terms, the sub-heading is called 'Defaults: Padding The Path of Least Resistance.' Most people left the default like that, I doubt most people change their defaults for the computer. Another example of default is when we order food in a fast-food restaurant. The guy taking your order forgets to ask you for what drink you want and you also forget, by default you would a get Pepsi or cola. This happens because many people order their drink as cola and the waiters take it as the default.
 Expect error, a good architect would know that the building or things he designs or for humans and like I said before humans err. Like the chapter suggests, choice architecture must be well thought of. In America, drivers drive on the left-hand side whilst in the United Kingdom its the opposite. So to suit the safety of tourists and pedestrians, the city is well equipped with warnings. Bathrooms are great examples of expect error. Some people forget to flush (its true and disturbing), so automatic toilets fix that, some forget to turn off the water and others take too much paper towels, that it all fixed to meet the likings of everyone. The people who made this expected error. Maybe someone was focusing on something whilst on the toilet and forgot to flush, despite how you go to the bathroom, its different for others. Don't tell me you've never seen someones left-overs in the toilet before. In other situations, a business man is in a hurry and doesn't close the sink properly and it is dripping, automatic ones can fix that! Humans aren't perfect and we were never supposed to be, we help each other by seeing each others mistakes and hopefully the world would be a much better place, with less error.
 Giving feedback is essential to improving. If someone made a brand new 'Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG),' then they would need feedback to improve and make it meet the likings of many people. This applies to mostly everything, giving feedback on how you study, look, or do things also count in. Restaurants need feedback because they have tough competition against others, that's why they usually give feedback cards after you finish your meal, to ask how it was. They value your feedback because if you didn't like something then maybe someone else didn't like it.
  Structure complex choices, when selecting something that is in a big number, you would want to get the best one. To find this, we use 'Elimination by aspects.' Say you wanted to rent a car, there are many cars out there but which one is the best suited with what you can afford. You eliminate some things first, if its above $50,000 then you won't buy it or if its a 4 seater than you won't get it. Select the features you want, $25,000, 7 seater, four-wheel drive, and the brand Toyota. The example from the chapter is similar but involves someone searching for apartments.

  That's it, you've survived Part I of Nudge, but its not finished yet. There are still 200+ pages to go but in all that brings the conclusion to basic thinking and we managed to learn some great vocabulary! Humans and Econs brought a great point and was an amazing part. Part II is detailed on wealth and will research further into behavior, in fact, its simply called,' Money.' Remember the description, improving decisions, about health, wealth, and happiness. Lets see if its concluded at the end of the book.

Fly in the Urinal, a big success!

Push or Pull?