"This article is a tribute to Robert Fabricant, a thinker who deeply influenced me, not through direct mentorship, but via his inspiring lecture at IXDA 2009. In that talk, Fabricant revealed a simple yet powerful insight: as designers, what we work with is behavior, shaping it, understanding it, and ultimately impacting lives. His words have stayed with me over the years, guiding my journey as a designer and researcher in the fields of HCI and Interaction Design."
"Time has passed. I've worked across various companies and projects, yet Fabricant's phrase, "Behavior is our medium," resonates now more than ever. Too often, those of us in design are consumed by efficiency metrics, conversions, and growth. You know the acronyms well: CAC, NPS, CSAT, LTV, ARPA, WAU, MAU, the endless race of numbers. It's easy to get lost designing for what drives revenue or satisfies stakeholders."
"Behavior change, or behavior modification (Bandura, 1970), is a branch of behavioral science that draws on fields such as cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, economics, and other social science disciplines to understand, influence, and alter human actions."
Design treats behavior as the medium through which practitioners shape, understand, and influence human actions to impact lives. Design work often faces pressure from business metrics such as CAC, NPS, CSAT, LTV, ARPA, WAU, and MAU, which can drive decisions toward revenue and stakeholder satisfaction. Good design should generate value and revenue for both people and companies while addressing deeper human outcomes. Behavior change is a multidisciplinary field drawing on cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, economics, and social sciences to understand and influence actions. Behavior denotes observable actions in response to stimuli; change implies shifts in habits, attitudes, or routines.
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