How to design so people… behave…!

Want people to do something particular in a space?  Sit quietly and read?  Enjoy a movie with others without interjecting comments for all to hear?  Eat using the table manners their grandmother would be proud of?

Then create spaces that will remind them of acting in just the desired ways in the past.

In our earliest days, when we are learning the basic rules of our societies, we learn to behave in certain ways in certain places.  We learn that in a classic academic library-type setting we need to quietly work alone and not disturb others who are also quietly working alone, for example.  We become aware that it’s rude to talk louder than the quietest whisper (and then only about the most important topics) during shows at community movie theatres.  Grandmothers can be sticklers for manners and being in a place that brings Grandma’s dining room to mind makes it less likely that we’ll put our elbows on the tables, just like sitting in a booklined interior or at a large oak-top table can make us think of a library and how we were trained to behave there.

Iconic versions of libraries, movie theatres, and grandma dining rooms are known as behaviour settings and when we want people to follow certain social rituals, such as working away alone without disturbing others, bringing the related model sort of space to mind in some way can be very handy.  Traditions, rituals detailing how to behave in particular sorts of places, are readily called to the fore and have a powerful effect on what we think and do.

Bringing behaviour settings to mind can seem silly, but when you give it a shot, you’ll see how effectively they get the job done.  Creating an at-home study space?  Add the oak table mentioned earlier or make sure that there are some books lined up as in a library in view.  Want your kids to stop horsing around on home movie nights?  Line up your seats like at a theatre and make the space dark.  Want to cut out the food fights in the dining room?  Add a lacey tablecloth like the one at grandma’s house to the mix.

The pull of behaviour settings on our behaviours is not really that different from how chipmunks and beavers respond to particular places—their existence reminds us that although we like to think otherwise, we’re not all that different from our “animal” cousins.