Self-Determination Theory
What motivates your users?
Any designer or creative person would wish to design something desired by their users that is useful and used on a regular basis. But how? What are some ways to help achieve this ultimate goal?
One of the key factors is understanding the target users and possible ways to motivate them. It is important for the designer to understand the types and mechanism of motivation because it directly correlates with users’ expectation and way to address users’ pain points. We need to consider both functionality and emotional aspect to be appealing to the user. Otherwise, they might not motivate enough to try out even though the product is super helpful.
What really motivates users?
One of the motivation theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs has brought a profound understanding of human needs and how they could be met. Interaction designers often use Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs as a guide in a design context to meet user’s needs. However, it doesn’t fully account for dynamics that people apply to their actions.
Self-determination theory bridges this gap by breaking motivation down not by the user’s priorities, but by the underlying triggers that result in increased user engagement in the first place.
What is Self Determination Theory (SDT)?
Self Determination Theory as know as theory of motivation has founded in the mid-1980s by researchers Edward L.Deci and Richard M. Ryan. SDT has been stated on the official Self Determination Theory website as:
Self determination theory concerns itself with human motivation, personality, and optimal functioning. Rather than just the amount of motivation, self-determination theory focuses on different types of motivation.
SDT is “concerned with supporting our natural or intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways.” In this way, SDT seems especially useful in a context of the design process because it tells designers how to provide the necessary factors that users look for in products/services.
Types of motivation
There are six different types of motivations in SDT. The further we go right, the more desirable the kind of motivation becomes from a design perspective. The ultimate goal of the products/services is to make users intrinsically motivated to buy and use it.
Principal factors that drive human motivation
SDT states that three principal factors represent the innate psychological needs which considered as universal necessities.[1] SDT also claims that “there are different approaches to motivation, and differentiates between different types of motivation.”[1]
The three principal factors are:
- Autonomy: Behavior that is self-enforced; self-initiated behavior
(e.g., Authority listens with empathy, provide meaningful rationale for change without pressure to comply, offer choice, acknowledge behavior change is challenging) [2] - Competence: Feeling effective in your environment; sense of mastery of tasks that are important to you
(e.g., Practice skills necessary for success, focus on participants strength, small changes, feedback and progress towards goal)[2] - Relatedness: Feeling cared for and connected with others; sense of belonging; reciprocal feelings of care
(e.g., Social Networks, group settings, peer support) [2]
Designer or any creative person can benefit from designing experiences that align with a user’s innate need for self-determination, thus more intrinsically motivates them to use the product/services.
Doing with Theory: Toolkit for Understanding User’s Motivation
Based on this awesome theory, I created a toolkit to elaborately understand the motivation of users — as well as the key stakeholders — for a designer to create better products/services.
The toolkit contains set of Motivation cards and Needs cards. Each Motivation cards represent different types of motivations and explain the motivations in detail with some extra information/tips for the designers. The Needs cards represent each different innate needs for motivation and give guidelines on how designers can address these needs with their products/services.
When I first tested this to one of my designer friends, she liked the concepts but struggled to apply it to her own practice. So I created a set of guidelines for designers to follow step by step to implement it into their own design practice.
At the beginning of the toolkit, SDT is briefly explained to give the participants a basic understanding of the theory. Participants are asked to pick one of their previous/current product/service in mind for following questions.
Then, participants are asked to think about target user and key stakeholders using various research protocol. By considering both best and worst scenario, participants can grasp the wide spectrum of key actions for them to match with the appropriate motivation.
Lastly, participants can start brainstorming the ideas for their products/services to fulfill these three innate needs for motivation. The toolkit further explains the three needs more in-depth for participants to fully understand the concepts.
The Motivation cards explain each motivation in user’s point of view. It contains some extra information/tips for the designers to understand the concepts of motivations.
The Needs cards represent each different innate needs for motivation. It gives guidelines on how designers or creative person can address each need with their products/services.
Pilot Testing
Over the weekend, I conducted pilot tests with 3 participants to see how they interpret the toolkit and what works versus not works. Since they all experienced designing product/services from beginning to the end, I asked them to pick on of their product/service and follow each step.
Key takeaways
- Most people found this helpful in their design practice. Every participant said they would use this either prototyping stage or iteration stage after the product/service has been released.
- Most people worked in a team-based so they think the toolkit would be more helpful if conducted in a group setting. Especially in the final stage of brainstorming, they naturally talked out loud and involved me as part of the process.
- Some participants were confused when they skipped the role-playing stages and asked to write down the key actions in best and worst scenarios. Majority of participants mentioned that thinking about worst scenario was particularly helpful in a way to view the products in different ways.
- I learned that all participants directly asked me if they have any confusion with the term or the concepts. To boost the workshop, I found that the person who leads the workshop should be familiar with the motivations and the needs for them to provide real-life examples when needed.
Next Step
As going forward, I would like to create a set of the toolkit for individual and group in both physical and digital world. There are a lot of productivity tool out there that help people to collaboratively and remotely work together. This toolkit can get advantage from tools like Google slide, Google docs or Mural and be creative together.
This exercise helped me to see how theory and practices from two different discipline can work together to create a meaningful pathway. As a designer who pursuit user-centered design approach, I wish I can contribute more in this field as I mature as an Interaction designer. I would love to learn more about psychology, sociology and cognitive science more in-depth to understand the interaction between people and everything else.
