One of the benefits of HUMANS is that we can use it in several ways. In common with many other BeSci frameworks – some of which are listed at the end of this part of the book – there isn't a strict methodology that you need to follow to gain potentially valuable insights from it. This is deliberate. As we'll see in Part IV, where we'll explore behavioural data and the human biases associated with gathering and interpreting it, the quality and quantity of insights available can vary substantially.

For that reason, HUMANS is designed to be both a basic, high‐level indicative guide or to do more sophisticated analysis. In its most straightforward application, you can quickly go through the individual elements of the framework and see if anything stands out. In my experience using the framework with clients, there are often just one or two factors that resonate far more than others, particularly when diagnosing why existing interventions aren't working as intended. If that's the case, you can just focus on those.

Alternatively, you could use it to do a more detailed analysis. Since the elements of HUMAN are scalar – in other words, the “answers” it produces, sit within a range – we can think about scoring the individual elements. Taking “Helpful” as an example, we can see that potential responses could sit on a scale from “Incredibly Unhelpful” to “Extremely Helpful”. We might then choose to use scores between −20 for the former and +20 for the latter, like this:

The appeal of adding a score is that it allows us to rank the different elements and compare behavioural interventions with each other. For that reason, a few of my clients have opted to use HUMANS this way. Most of them have done so by directly asking a sample of their employees to provide the scores. If that appeals to you, then, by all means, go ahead, but be aware that you'll need to consider calibrating the different elements; for example, is “Extremely Helpful” worth as many points as “Incredibly Acceptable”?

The other thing to consider is that, in reality, a particular intervention might not produce as clear an answer as the scale might suggest. Our employees can perceive something as simultaneously “helpful” in some regards and “unhelpful” in others. While you could theoretically net the two off and conclude the intervention is “neutral”, that potentially means missing some opportunities to create more creative interventions that maximise the high‐scoring aspects and minimise the low‐scoring ones.

Potential Actions

Whether reviewing an existing behavioural intervention or planning a new one, HUMANS can help inform our decision. Once we've analysed the actual or expected impact of a particular intervention, we can take one of several courses of action:

1. Reject: we opt not to continue with or implement the intervention. Either because – in extreme cases – we recognise that the “bad will” it generates exceeds the benefits of introducing it, or because it is unlikely to work in the way we had envisaged.
2. Redesign: we change the nature of the intervention to take account of the behavioural dynamics we have identified.
3. Reframe: we keep the substance of the intervention as it is but focus on reframing our employees' perception of it.
4. Roll out regardless: we continue with the intervention but recognise a greater risk of noncompliance and increase our monitoring and deterrence activities.

Standing on the Shoulders

Before we leave HUMANS, I want to highlight two additional BeSci frameworks – on whose shoulders I am standing – that you might also find helpful. Both have helped to inspire some of the thinking behind HUMANS and my work with clients. Both can help you to humanize your rules.

Going Dutch

One of the pleasures of working in BeSci is that it is an international discipline. I work with colleagues across the globe. Some countries, like the Netherlands, are centres of excellence. The Dutch have a long history of deploying BeSci in exciting ways.

You'll find one of the most commonly replicated and cited BeSci interventions at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Sadly, it's only visible to half of you since it's in the men's toilets. Those unable to visit either the airport or the men's toilets can do an image search for what I'm about to describe. The idea of the intervention is to help gentlemen – how can I put this? – aim more accurately by providing a visible target. In this case, the image of a fly has been etched into the inside of the urinal.

While you're in the airport, do also look out for two other pieces of BeSci brilliance; though honestly, you won't be able to miss them! The first is “Real Time”, a clock by Dutch artist Maarten Baas. It's a film of a man in blue overalls who paints the time, minute by minute. It's both eye‐catching and unusual, making it highly salient for passengers, giving them no excuse to be late to the gate! The second is the iconic way‐finding signage that makes navigating the terminals incredibly easy. It's a wonderful example. Designed by visual information designer Paul Mijksenaar, it's so much of a national icon that you'll find it in the Rijksmuseum, their national museum. Both the clock and the signage score highly on HUMANS!

On that basis, perhaps it's not surprising that the Netherlands have also come up with a groundbreaking BeSci framework that was one of the inspirations for HUMANS. I discovered it thanks to my friend and fellow behavioural traveller Roger Miles, who highlighted it in his Conduct Risk Management¹ book. It's called “The Table Of Eleven (TTOE)”.²

TTOE was published in 1994 by the wonderfully named Law Enforcement Expertise Centre of the Dutch Ministry of Justice in The Hague. The very forward‐thinking idea behind TTOE was to ensure that legislators should assess any proposed new laws for what I refer to as “compliability”, in other words, how feasible and likely it is that people will comply with them.

TTOE assesses laws against two sets of criteria. First, intrinsic motivation to comply with the law, i.e., what would people's reactions to the concept be if there were no law governing it? Second, extrinsic motivation to comply with the law, i.e., how likely it is that people will get caught if they break the law.

Since HUMANS does not focus on enforcement measures such as reporting, inspection, and sanctions, readers interested in these topics will find TTOE well worth their time.

FEAST

The second framework comes from the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), the original “Nudge Unit” I referred to in Chapter 5 on BeSci. Having originally published a comprehensive framework of behavioural drivers called MINDSPACE³ – which may be of interest to readers looking for a more academic analysis – they also published a simpler, more user‐friendly version called EAST.

EAST is short for Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely and covers four basic principles that can support behavioural interventions. Readers interested in understanding where these elements fit into HUMANS will find “Easy” in “Manageable”, “Attractive” in “Salient”, “Social” in “Normal”, and “Timely” in “Helpful”.

When I usually teach EAST to my clients, I add an “F” to form FEAST. The “F” stands for “Fair” and reflects the importance of Rule Number Six; just because we can do a behavioural intervention doesn't mean we should. It also allows me to say that all my behavioural interventions begin with the concept of “Fairness”. As an alternative, Professor Richard Thaler, co‐author of Nudge,⁴ has developed his version of FEAST where “F” stands for “Fun”. When it comes to HUMANS, you'll find “Fairness” in “Acceptable” and “Fun” in “Salient”.

While HUMANS is a more comprehensive framework, (F)EAST can provide an excellent entry point for those new to BeSci or who need a tool that they can very quickly deploy.

Other Frameworks Are Available

At this point, I need to highlight that having specifically referenced TTOE and EAST that – in the spirit of the disclaimer regularly deployed by the BBC – “other BeSci frameworks are available”. Since no single framework can do justice to all relevant biases, heuristics, and dynamics, a compromise will always be required. For that reason, I tend to work with a number of them. Though, obviously, I start with – what else? – HUMANS.