Most designers, innovators, and change-makers aren't aware of the 93 Behavior Change Techniques...
Or if they are, they don't know how to translate them into features for their products, services, or change initiatives.
If you are building solutions for Health and well-being, Finance, Education or Change, knowing how to leverage these techniques in your context can give you better results.
Having worked with or as a designer, product manager, or innovator I noticed that while behavior and psychology seemed to be talked about, they were never properly defined, nor did I see much in terms of blending theories and models with practical work.
The result would be great features, but rarely did we get the engagement on those gamification features that my old Product Manager at one company would promise me we would get. - maybe he wasn't meant to be the "CEO of the Product"?
But Why?
It usually comes down to not understanding the Jobs/Needs that people have (and no, I don't mean you writing a job story at the end to explain a feature)
Once those needs are understood, then we can increase our focus by understanding what the behaviors are (and aren't) and analyze the root cause of why those happen or don't.
Once you know this, you move on to find the best ingredients (in the Behavior Change Techniques). to create your solution and then translate these to your context. - Once you work like this, you can't go back to the old ways....
Remember, If you are only copying features, then you are not in control, since you have no clue if that feature you copied is going to work for your customers and their context - and worse it could cause backfires or spillover effects.
At Aim For Behavior, we create translated techniques for our customers and their context, so they can create solutions that help enable behavior.
We have also developed our own translated library with behavior change and motivation techniques in different industries - and we continue to add examples as we work on more projects and learn more about different contexts.
There are 93 Techniques in the BCTTv1 - created by Michie and colleagues over at UCL Centre for Behaviour Change which are open to anyone to see, learn, and apply.
I'll close by saying this:
Instead of focusing on a few, perhaps superficial, techniques that might not be grounded in thorough behavioral principles, or evidence, why not invest time in doing it a different way than the norm?
Your customers, employees, and your organization will thank you for it :)