Talk to the Elephant – Designing Learning for Behavior Change

Talk to the Elephant
Designing Learning for Behavior Change

As a learning designer, what do you do when people know they need to wear their safety glasses, or add to their retirement savings, or update their client records, or finish their compliance training, or submit their expense reports on time, but they still aren’t doing it?

This session will explore how to design with principles and models from behavioral science. We will examine behavior change from a number of different angles, using techniques from the fields of neuroscience, behavioral economics, behavioral psychology, persuasive technology, and user experience design.

In this session we will look at the top reasons why learning fails to change behavior and what you can do instead. Drawing on current research into behavior change interventions, this session will:

• Help you diagnose the root causes for difficult behavior change challenges
• Identify solutions using comprehensive research-based models
• Consider how to redesign learning materials to be more effective at motivating sustainable behavior change

Julie Dirksen

Julie Dirksen is the author of the books Design For How People Learn and Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change. 

She is a learning strategy consultant with a focus on incorporating behavioral science into learning interventions. Her MS degree is in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University. She’s been an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is a Learning Guild Guildmaster.

She is happiest when she gets to learning something new, and you can find her at usablelearning.com