Nudge Judge
We think we are in control of our lives, but when it comes to our behaviours, there’s too much we don’t know. Remember that moment you just wanted a chip and ended up eating the whole pack? Exactly. We rationally think we’re on top of our choices, but often we are not.
This is where ‘nudging’ plays a role. In psychology, a nudge as ‘a light touch or push’ around the decisions you make. Research suggests at least 95% of our behaviours are automated and driven by our subconscious. Our brain does this to energy, but it often means we do things without thinking about them. An old dog can’t learn new tricks? This is why. Habit is a powerful thing.
According to Lauren Kelly, founder and design psychologist at Behaviour Studio, “your decisions exist across a decision ecosystem, and looking at the decisions across that ecosystem help us understand where we can nudge”. What does this have to do with food delivery platforms? Everything. As those platforms become a bigger part of our food consumption habits, they have a responsibility to nudge us in the right direction.
For example, the time you order might make a difference. Kelly uses Deliveroo “on two distinct occasions: health and convenience, mid-week, where I come in late from work, don’t want to cook, but also don’t want to eat burgers. Or for a Friday or Saturday treat, with a couple of mates, having a couple of beers.” In theory, food delivery services should be able to know when you’re ordering so they can nudge you in the right ways at the right moments.
In the future, this might involve anticipating user demand in order to provide a better experience. “If you knew the day of the week, my previous orders and my mindset”, Kelly ponders, “how amazing would it be if an algorithm sensed we’ve had a really stressful day on a Wednesday and we’re getting home late? It has location data, it knows where I am in the city, and it knows I have two hours until I get home. So it could nudge me to order my favourite meal before I get home.” This is called ‘intervention nudging’, where professionals like Kelly look at the entire scope of a certain behaviour, and intervene at the crucial moment when a user is having a hard time deciding what to do.
But there are simpler ways of achieving this. One of them is the good ol’ traffic light system, to highlight which foods are healthier, and use them to influence when you want people to have lighter meals. This is proven to deliver actual results: “there is a study (VanEpps, Downs et al. 2016, Calorie Label Formats: Using Numeric and Traffic Light Calorie Labels to Reduce Lunch Calories) that found coloured labels reduced lunch calories by about 10%”, Kelly adds.
Another example involves… Pringles. Pringles has often advertised that ‘Once you pop you can’t stop’, but in 2012, Dr. Wansink of Cornell University proved that you can. The secret? The colour red. Kelly explains: “he found that if every so often you put a red dyed Pringle in the pack, this interrupts that automated behaviour by introducing a visual cue that says you’ve eaten a quarter of the tube, making you think if you really want to stop. He found that with the red Pringle, the average person consumed 200 fewer calories”.
Simple changes like these can make a big difference for food delivery platforms. We want to enjoy food while making healthy choices, and while a big part of that depends on our own choices, research proves this might not be enough. As a designer, Kelly puts the responsibility on the platforms and professionals like her: “we can nudge people to make better decisions, to make better choices and have a better experience. If we don’t design for it, we’re ultimately destroying our clients.” Deep. But true. And important.
