Jaewoo teaches and writes about design thinking, behavioral economics, and field experiment for customer experience. He is professor of marketing and participating professor of experience design at Kookmin University. Jaewoo has been Visiting Scholar at Stanford University since September 2024.
Recently, while applying for my driver license in California, I encountered a section about organ donation. The DMV’s (Department of Motor Vehicles) approach is an example of default.
First, they primed me with two statements:
“One person can save up to 8 lives, and heal over 75, through organ and tissue donation for transplantation. You can register regardless of age or health.”
“Organ donation happens after death, and your decision will not impact medical treatment.”
The first statement emphasizes the positive impact, while the second addresses potential concerns. This balanced approach put me at ease and highlighted benefits.
Then comes the question: “Would you like to register?” with two options: “Yes” or “Not at this time.” This is where default comes into play. By framing the question this way, they make saying “yes” feel like the natural choice.
Interestingly, even if I chose “Not at this time,” I was informed that I am still in the registry but without the pink dot on my license that indicates donor status. This opt-out process requires additional steps, making it more likely for people to remain registered.
This example resonates the findings of Johnson & Goldstein’s 2003 study on how defaults influence decision-making. By designing the process this way, the California DMV is likely increasing organ donation rates without forcing anyone’s hand.
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Reference
Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302(5649), 1338–1339.
“If preferences concerning organ donation are strong, we would expect defaults to have little or no effect. However, as can be seen in the figure, defaults appear to make a large difference: the four opt-in countries (gold) had the lower rates than the six opt-out countries (blue)… One reason these results appear to be greater than those in our laboratory study is that the cost of changing from the default is higher; it involves filling out forms, making phone calls, and sending mail.” (pg. 1339)
Salon de Jungui Lee is a cafe in Jeju island. With minimal construction and a commitment to preserving its essence, the owner of the old house transformed it into a cafe that embodies her philosophy of refined simplicity.
This cafe is a popular destination among Korean coffee lovers. Coffee is excellent, but its desserts are not overly sweet, not sticky, nor heavy treats. To me, each bite was a carefully orchestrated symphony of taste and texture.
Beyond taste, its atmosphere was unique. The pinnacle was the air conditioner vent. Instead of a tasteless plastic vent, a repurposed traditional Korean window frame was hanging on the ceiling. It was functional, beautiful, and deeply rooted in cultural heritage.
While enjoying coffee, dessert, and unique air conditioner vent, I naturally assumed that the vintage speaker pumped out the tunes. However, it was actually a cleverly disguised modern Bose system connected to an iPhone.
Salon de Jungui Lee taught me a valuable lesson about experience. It is not just about the individual components – the coffee, the desserts, or the décor. It is about how these elements come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
Recent research has highlighted the notion that people can make judgments and choices by means of two systems that are labeled here tacit (or intuitive) and deliberate (or analytic). Whereas most decisions typically involve both systems, this chapter examines the conditions under which each system is liable to be more effective. This aims to illuminate the age-old issue of whether and when people should trust “intuition” or “analysis.” To do this, a framework is presented to understand how the tacit and deliberate systems work in tandem. Distinctions are also made between the types of information typically used by both systems as well as the characteristics of environments that facilitate or hinder accurate learning by the tacit system. Next, several experiments that have contrasted “intuitive” and “analytic” modes on the same tasks are reviewed. Together, the theoretical framework and experimental evidence leads to specifying the trade-off that characterizes their relative effectiveness. Tacit system responses can be subject to biases. In making deliberate system responses, however, people might not be aware of the “correct rule” to deal with the task they are facing and/or make errors in executing it. Whether tacit or deliberate responses are more valid in particular circumstances requires assessing this trade-off. In this, the probability of making errors in deliberate thought is postulated to be a function of the analytical complexity of the task as perceived by the person. Thus the trade-off is one of bias (in implicit responses) versus analytical complexity (when tasks are handled in deliberate mode). Finally, it is noted that whereas much attention has been paid in the past to helping people make decisions in deliberate mode, efforts should also be directed toward improving ability to make decisions in tacit mode since the effectiveness of decisions clearly depends on both. This therefore represents an important frontier for research.
Recently, Tim Hortons expanded into Korea. It successfully kept many core offerings including the most popular coffee called Double Double. However, the chain overlooked the importance of sugar, a key ingredient of coffee, running into some challenges with brand authenticity.
When I ordered my once favorite “a black coffee with two sugars” at a freshly opened store in Korea, I was served coffee with two Korean sugar packets. Unfortunately, they differ from the familiar Canadian sugars that are part of the authentic Tim Hortons experience. This seemingly minor change impacts the unique experience that loyal Tim Hortons customers like me expect.
Brands should consistently deliver on their promises to maintain authenticity (Schallehn et al. 2014). For global brands like Tim Hortons, preserving even the smallest elements of their identity is key. Deviations from established brand expectations—such as using different ingredients or local adaptation—can diminish consumer trust and loyalty, even if those changes seem insignificant.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of brand authenticity and analyze the antecedents and effects of the construct. Although there is no doubt about the relevance of authenticity in personal relationships, published research has yet not thoroughly explored the concept’s meaning in reference to brands.
Design/methodology/approach Based on socio-psychological attribution theories and grounding on the identity-based brand management approach, a causal model of brand authenticity is developed. The hypothesized relationships are analyzed using the partial-least-squares approach. The primary data are based on an online survey conducted in Germany (n = 600). The respondents were asked about fast-food and beer brands.
Findings The data show that brand authenticity positively impacts on brand trust. Furthermore, the key antecedents in the model (consistency, continuity and individuality of a brand) drive the perception of brand authenticity as hypothesized.
Research limitations/implications The model should be tested in further product categories and moderators should be integrated.
Originality/value The findings suggest that authenticity is perceived when a brand is consistent, continuous and individual in its behavior. Nevertheless, the empirical results indicate that the factor individuality has the lowest influence on perceived brand authenticity. This is an interesting finding, as being “unique” is commonly regarded as an important success factor in branding. Although the study’s findings confirm its relevancy, they relativize its importance: being consistent, meaning that a brand fulfills its brand promise at every brand-touch point, and being continuous, meaning that the brand promise reflects the essential core of the brand, are of major importance.
The broken windows theory, introduced by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1982, suggests that visible signs of disorder and misbehavior in an environment encourage further disorder and misbehavior, leading to serious crimes. A classic example is a building with a few broken windows. If left unrepaired, vandals are likely to break more windows, potentially leading to more serious property damage.
During a recent trip to Istanbul, Turkiye, I observed this theory in action through a series of urban landscapes. The following image illustrates the problem. An outside trash and garbage collection area was exposed in a busy commercial district.
In contrast, the following three images demonstrate clever solutions, showcasing how to apply the broken windows theory in urban planning. In the first two images, the trash and garbage collection area was enclosed by an artificial ivy hedge to minimize its visibility from pedestrians. In the last image, the back side of a series of market stalls was enclosed by the decorative wall.
Hiding trash and garbage collection areas may not be a permanent solution. However, doing so will motivate citizens to keep their cities clean. By investing in public spaces, urban planners create environments that naturally deter crime and foster community well-being.
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Reference
Kelling, G. L., & Wilson, J. Q. (1982). Broken windows. Atlantic monthly, 249(3), 29-38.
In the mid-1970s The State of New Jersey announced a “Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program,” designed to improve the quality of community life in twenty-eight cities. As part of that program, the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats. The governor and other state officials were enthusiastic about using foot patrol as a way of cutting crime, but many police chiefs were skeptical. Foot patrol, in their eyes, had been pretty much discredited. It reduced the mobility of the police, who thus had difficulty responding to citizen calls for service, and it weakened headquarters control over patrol officers…
Taking a break to go on a vacation is the best way to balance work and life. Hotels or resorts offer many guest activities including yoga classes, spa services, local tours, shopping trips, and food tasting, to name a few.
Among many guest activities, one of my favorite is to color adult coloring books. For instance, Capella hotel at Singapore, offered me a coloring book with colored pencils.
While I was coloring, I focused on a simple activity. This began to relax my brain and quiet my mind. Thankfully, I could stop my racing thoughts when trying to sleep at night. Some studies have shown that focusing on the complex structure of the coloring page can help put our mind into a meditative state.
Quiet your mind with a therapeutic colouring session.
A form of Minduflness-Based Art Therapy, colouring can temporarily draw your attention away from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives while unplugging ourselves from the digital world.
Mindfulness has been associated with the use of coloring books for adults; however, the question of whether they do increase mindfulness has not been addressed. In two studies, we attempted to identify whether mindfulness is increased, and whether there is a need for ongoing guidance while coloring, similar to mindfulness meditation. In the first randomized controlled experiment, university students (n = 88) were assigned to an unguided mandala coloring group (i.e., described in mainstream literature as a mindfulness practice) or to a free-drawing group. Measurements of state mindfulness and state anxiety were taken pre- and post- experiment. Results indicated no change in mindfulness or anxiety. In the second randomized controlled experiment, university students (n = 72) were assigned to an unguided mandala coloring group (i.e., same as Experiment 1), or, to a mindfulness-guided coloring group (i.e., same as the unguided coloring group with a mindfulness practitioner guiding participants as in mindfulness breathing meditation, with instructions modified and applied to coloring). Results indicated that the mindfulness-guided mandala coloring group performed better in decreasing anxiety, but no change was observed in mindfulness. Exit interviews revealed that some participants did not like the voice guiding them while coloring, which suggested further differing and significant findings. While mindfulness-guided coloring appears promising, guidance or instructions on how to color mindfully may require further development and adjustment to enhance health and wellbeing.
Design Fixation refers to the tendency to adhere to pre-existing ideas, which hinders innovative design solutions. This research explores the potential of LLM-powered Creativity Support Tools, the ’Behaviorally Informed Creativity Support Tool (BI-CST),’ to facilitate ideation and combat Design Fixation using ’Behavioral Science Theory.’ BI-CST assists in redefning problems and generating new ideas by presenting experimental fndings from Behavioral Sciences that challenge users’ initial concepts, thus providing a deeper understanding of real human behaviors. We will assign three groups to diferent conditions: one designing without generative AI support, one with open-ended generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT), and one using a model trained in behavioral science. We aim to compare the originality, practicality, and general quality of the designs to assess design fxation. This study addresses design fxation through an interdisciplinary approach combining design and behavioral science, aiming to expand users’ perspectives.
Keywords
creativity support tool, human AI collaboration, behavioral science, design fixation, generative AI
… Behavioral science, a sub field of psychology, aims to understand and predict people’s behaviors through scientific methods ranging from casual observation of daily life to systematic observation to minimize the effects of biases [22, 29]. Its research includes behavioral decision theory, which shows people’s heuristics and biases in judgment [9], and builds nudges that gently alter people’s decision making processes [27]. As this field targets problem-solving by understanding people’s psychology, efforts have been made to apply theories of behavioral science in the HCI field to change users’ behavior [13, 14, 19]. However, there has been limited research on incorporating behavioral science into Creativity Support to aid design processes. We assume that the scientific causal and systematic observational results about human behavior from behavioral science can serve as a ’nudge’ to assist users in gaining more diverse perspectives. (pg. 117)
… We hypothesize that participants using a non-behaviorally informed Creativity Support Tool (CST) in Condition B are likely to reinforce their existing heuristics, which could increase their design fixation. In contrast, participants in Condition C, who will be provided with behaviorally informed guidance, are expected to adopt new heuristics that help reduce their fixation on initial ideas. Specifically, we anticipate that the outputs in Condition A and Condition B will likely exhibit medium to high originality but may have low practicality. Conversely, outputs from Condition C are expected to show medium originality but high practicality, due to the application of evidence-based creative support derived from behavioral science research. (pg. 119)
I was invited by Digital Marketing Summit 2024 to introduce and ask questions to Thales Teixeira. He is the founder of Decoupling.co and Professor at University of California San Diego.
Thales has reminded us of the importance of customer orientation. He introduced that customer activities will differ across industries. Then, he showed from his data that companies in different industries scored low in different customer activities. For instance, Hyundai scores low in the activity where customers compare cars, whereas Sephora scores low in the activity where customers are greeted. This suggests that every single company in different industries should fix different customer activities.
I was recently invited by Professor Aguinaldo Santos to give a lecture to his design students at Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR). In this lecture, I introduced my collaborative project experience with a team of Digital Appliance (DA) Business Divisionan at Samsung Electronics. They develope washers, dryers, and refrigerators, to name a few.
Although their effort in comprehensively collecting VoC was impressive, the way they interpret VoC was not rigorous sufficiently. They could not help but rely on intuition or expertise, interpreting VoC in a biased way.
To debias VoC interpretation, we employed the Goal Systems Theory. Since this theory illustrates why people behave in such a way (e.g., I choose rucola because I want to lose 10 pounds), it enabled them to understand VoC from the writer’s viewpoint.
Then, we developed a guideline about how to interpret VoC from a customer’s perspecitve, and examined its effectiveness by testing 3,500 VoC. One lesson we have learned is that frequently reported VoC was not always the right source of innovation. Instead, the VoC connected with an important goal, though not frequently reported, pointed to the right direction.
In recent years, many U.S. and Japanese firms have adopted Quality Function Deployment (QFD). QFD is a total-quality-management process in which the “voice of the customer” is deployed throughout the R&D, engineering, and manufacturing stages of product development. For example, in the first “house” of QFD, customer needs are linked to design attributes thus encouraging the joint consideration of marketing issues and engineering issues. This paper focuses on the “Voice-of-the-Customer’ component of QFD, that is, the tasks of identifying customer needs, structuring customer needs, and providing priorities for customer needs. In the identification stage, we address the questions of ( 1 ) how many customers need be interviewed, (2) how many analysts need to read the transcripts, (3) how many customer needs do we miss, and (4) are focus groups or one-on-one interviews superior? In the structuring stage the customer needs are arrayed into a hierarchy of primary, secondary, and tertiary needs. We compare group consensus (affinity) charts, a technique which accounts for most industry applications, with a technique based on customer-sort data. In the stage which provides priorities we present new data in which product concepts were created by product-development experts such that each concept stressed the fulfillment of one primary customer need. Customer interest in and preference for these concepts are compared to measured and estimated importances. We also address the question of whether frequency of mention can be used as a surrogate for importance. Finally, we examine the stated goal of QFD, customer satisfaction. Our data demonstrate a self-selection bias in satisfaction measures that are used commonly for QFD and for corporate incentive programs. We close with a brief application to illustrate
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Reference 2
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2018). A theory of goal systems. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Department, Vol. 34, pp. 331–378). Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Academic Press.
The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological advantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation, and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues, including activity experience, goal commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis.
Background We aim to study whether social loneliness, as a psychological variable, and social crowding, as an environmental variable, jointly influence people’s preference for an anthropomorphic product. Specifically, this study aims to test two hypotheses; whether social loneliness increases the preference for an anthropomorphic product and whether this effect is influenced by social crowding.
Methods Two experiments were conducted to test the two hypotheses. When manipulating the anthropomorphim of a product, social loneliness, and social crowding, we strictly followed the procedure of prior literature.
Results We obtained two findings. First, participants showed a stronger preference for the anthropomorphic product when they were socially lonely than when not. Second, when participants were socially crowded, their preferences for the anthropomorphic product did not increase even when they were socially lonely.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that people’s preference for an anthropomorphic product is jointly determined by social loneliness and social crowding. To make better use of anthropomorphism in product design, designers should consider both consumers’ social loneliness and stores’ social crowdedness.
Keywords:
Anthropomorphism, Product Design, Social Crowdedness, Social Loneliness
… The research demonstrates that social loneliness should not be viewed solely as a psychological issue, but can act as a pivotal factor in driving sales of anthropomorphized products. As such, marketers would benefit from focusing on consumer segments experiencing social loneliness. Additionally, incorporating anthropomorphic design and messaging into marketing communications could enhance product preference among these lonely consumers. Specifically targeting the anthropomorphic qualities of offerings to the socially lonely represents a viable strategy for boosting consumers’ attachment and sales potential. (pg. 97)
… when managers use anthropomorphism in marketing communications, they must consider both the psychological state of the target consumers and meet their needs and the social crowding of the environment. As suggested by the literature and supported by our experimental findings, the marketing of anthropomorphic products for lonely target groups should endeavor to choose less crowded social environments for publicity and promotion. This will enable consumers to easily and quickly find products that meet their belonging needs and thus promote sales and achieve good marketing effects. (pg. 97)
I recently gave a lecture at Ecobee, a smart home product company in Canada. In this lecture, I compared two different approaches when bundling multiple smart home products.
One is product-centered bundling; they can select a hero product or a product that contributes to their sales significantly and then attach additional products randomly. The other is human-centered (service-centered) bundling; they can select multiple products to form a service which helps consumers achieve their goals.
The product-centered bundling was previously employed among Samsung designers; they selected Galaxy mobile phone or Samsung TV and then added smart door lock or smart plug to create Multi Device Experience. However, we proposed them to adopt the human-centered (service-centered) approach.
The more I become interested in cognitive interventions, the more I delve into motivational goals. This is because we are able to change their behaviors if we know why consumers do what they do. I wish Ecobee designers apply goal to solve their business problems.
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Reference 1
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2018). A theory of goal systems. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Department, Vol. 34, pp. 331–378). Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Academic Press.
The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological ad- vantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation, and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues, including activity experience, goal commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis.
Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al. 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.
