Behavioral design is a sub-category of design, which is concerned with how design can shape, or be used to influence human behavior.

All approaches of design for behavior change acknowledge that artifacts have an important influence on human behavior and/or behavioral decisions. They strongly draw on theories of behavioral change, including the division into personal, behavioral, and environmental characteristics as drivers for behavior change.

Areas in which design for behavior change has been most commonly applied include health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety and social context, as well as crime prevention.

Design for behavior change is an openly value-based approach that seeks to promote ethical behaviors and attitudes within social and environmental contexts. This raises questions about whose values are promoted and to who's benefit.

While intrinsically seeking to promote socially and environmentally ethical practices, there are two possible objections: The first is that such approaches can be seen a paternalistic, manipulative and disenfranchising where decisions about the environment are being made by one person or group for another with or without consultation.

The second objection is that this approach can be abused, for example in that apparently positive goals of behavior change might be made simply to serve commercial gain without regard for the envisaged ethical concerns. The debate about the ethical considerations of design for behavior change is still emerging, and will develop with the further development of the field.

When designing for behavior change, the misapplication of behavioral design can trigger backfires, when they accidentally increasing the bad behavior they were originally designed to reduce. Given the stigma of triggering bad outcomes, researchers believe that persuasive backfires effects are common but rarely published, reported, or discussed.

From Wikepedia