Writing reports and setting goals is the easy part. Turning those goals into practice is much tougher; as behavioral scientists know, there is often a gap between intention and action.
There’s much to be gained by broadening out from designing choice architecture with little input from those who use it. But we need to change the way we talk about the options.
Netflix’s landing page is full of choice architecture tools—plausible paths, smart defaults, and carefully curated descriptions. But it doesn’t do all of the work itself. The platform takes cues from you, too.
While a nudge might appear effective because a population benefited on average, at the individual level the story could be different. It’s time nudges got personal.
As we enter the second post-Nudge decade, policymakers should consider and evaluate how their nudges are being interpreted to ensure they have the intended effects.
