Description

A focused course, tailored for you

Behaviour-Change User Research for Public Services

Run discovery and engagement that produces a measured behaviour shift in residents and frontline staff, not a deck nobody acts on.

Your research lands. The behaviour does not move. The form, the letter, the booking journey ships with cosmetic tweaks and the original problem persists, because the protocol you ran was a UX discovery, not a behaviour-change diagnosis.

$199 one-time

Tailored to your situation. Access within 24 hours. 30-day money-back.

Includes a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, generated for your specific situation.

Why this course

User researchers in local authorities, civic-service teams, and public-facing UX practices are increasingly asked to deliver behaviour change. Increase appointment attendance. Reduce form abandonment. Raise uptake of a benefit residents are entitled to. Cut frontline-staff workarounds in a case-management tool. The discovery cycle returns thick insight. The synthesis is excellent. The service team accepts the report. Then the deployed change is a content edit or a small flow tweak, and the metric the commissioner cares about barely moves. The gap is not in the research craft, it is in the framing. A UX discovery asks what is hard, confusing, or unmet. A behaviour-change diagnosis asks what capability, opportunity, and motivation conditions are absent or present for the specific behaviour the service needs. The two produce different interview guides, different journey-map overlays, different prototype tests, and crucially different reports. This course rebuilds discovery and engagement around the behaviour the service is accountable for, end to end.

What you walk away with

Write a behaviour specification brief, naming the actor, behaviour, trigger, context, and measurable target, that a service owner signs before research starts.
Run interviews and contextual sessions with residents and frontline staff that diagnose capability, opportunity, and motivation conditions for the specified behaviour.
Overlay a behavioural-diagnosis layer onto a service journey map and pinpoint the two or three intervention points with the highest probability of moving the metric.
Design and run a small-scale field test of a content, prompt, or process change with a comparison group, and read the result honestly.
Produce a research write-up that a Head of Service or commissioner authorises action on, not a deck that sits in SharePoint.

The 12 modules

Module 1. From UX discovery to behaviour-change diagnosis

What changes when the commissioner's success measure is a behavioural metric rather than a satisfaction score. The shift from open generative questions to behaviour-anchored ones. How a discovery brief, a research plan, and an interview guide each look different when the target is, for example, raising on-time appointment attendance by ten percentage points rather than understanding the appointment journey. Worked example: rewriting a real local-authority discovery brief through this lens.

Module 2. Writing a behaviour specification a service owner will sign

The one-page document that names the actor, the behaviour, the trigger, the context, the current rate, the target rate, and the timeframe. Why every research project that lands starts with this document signed and every project that drifts skipped it. Template included. Walk-through of three real specifications: a benefits-uptake one, a frontline-staff tool-use one, and a service-recovery one. How to negotiate the spec with a Head of Service who wants research to discover the goal rather than start from one.

Module 3. COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel as a working protocol

The framework boiled down to a usable diagnostic. Capability split into physical and psychological. Opportunity split into social and physical. Motivation split into reflective and automatic. How to ask interview questions that land in each cell without sounding like a survey. How to map answers to intervention functions and policy categories without losing the resident's actual words. Cheat sheet with question stems for each of the six conditions, calibrated for civic-service contexts.

Module 4. EAST and MINDSPACE for intervention design

The Behavioural Insights Team's Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely frame, and the older MINDSPACE checklist, used as design lenses rather than slogans. When Easy beats Attractive. When defaults are ethically appropriate and when they overreach. How to pick the single lens that fits the diagnosis from module three, design an intervention against it, and write the testable hypothesis. Three worked examples drawn from civic-service contexts: a council-tax reminder, a GP appointment confirmation, and a housing-repair reporting flow.

Module 5. Recruiting for behaviour-anchored research

Why a generic UX panel returns the wrong sample for behaviour-change work. How to recruit residents who have actually exhibited or failed the target behaviour in the recent past. Working with frontline staff as recruiters, with case workers as gatekeepers, with community organisations as access routes. Incentives that are appropriate for public-service contexts. Consent and safeguarding considerations specific to vulnerable residents. A recruitment screener template that filters on behaviour, not demographics.

Module 6. Interview craft for diagnosis, not generative discovery

How the interview guide changes when the goal is to diagnose capability, opportunity, and motivation rather than to surface unmet needs. Question sequencing that moves from the specific behaviour episode outwards. Probes that distinguish a capability gap from a motivation gap from an opportunity gap. Handling moments when the participant rationalises a behaviour after the fact. Recording, note-taking, and tagging structures that feed directly into the synthesis in module seven.

Module 7. Synthesis: mapping evidence to a behavioural diagnosis

How to move from forty interview notes to a one-page diagnostic that names the two or three conditions blocking the behaviour and the one or two reinforcing it. Affinity mapping is not enough. A structured synthesis matrix with COM-B rows and journey-stage columns. How to test that the diagnosis is sound by predicting which interventions would and would not work, then sense-checking with frontline staff. Worked example: a full synthesis from a benefits-uptake project, end to end.

Module 8. Journey mapping with a behavioural overlay

The journey map most service-design teams produce shows steps, emotions, and pain points. The version that drives behaviour change adds a layer naming, at each step, the behaviour the resident or staff member must perform, the capability, opportunity, and motivation conditions for that step, and the design intent. How to facilitate a workshop that produces this overlay with a service-design team in half a day. The two or three intervention points the overlay tends to surface as highest leverage.

Module 9. Designing the field test

How to design a small-scale test of a content, prompt, or process change so the result is interpretable. Pre-registered hypothesis. A comparison group, even where a randomised trial is impossible. Sample-size sufficiency rules of thumb for civic-service metrics. Working with operations and analytics teams to instrument the test. Ethics-committee or information-governance considerations and how to get a test approved in a public-sector context within two weeks rather than three months.

Module 10. Running and reading the field test

What to monitor while the test is live without contaminating it. The discipline of not changing the intervention mid-flight. How to read the result honestly when the effect is smaller than hoped, larger than plausible, or noisy. Distinguishing a real effect from a novelty effect. Pre-mortem and post-mortem templates. How to explain a null result to a commissioner so it is treated as learning rather than failure.

Module 11. The write-up that gets authorised, not filed

The one-page summary that a Head of Service reads and acts on. The five-page report behind it. The appendix with the evidence trail. What goes above the fold and what goes below. How to present a behavioural diagnosis to leaders who think in service-performance metrics. How to recommend a rollout with the right caveats. The three sentences that turn a recommendation into a decision. Two worked example reports included.

Module 12. Embedding the practice across a service-design team

How to bring colleagues along when you are the only person in the team running this protocol. Lightweight training sessions for service designers and content designers. A shared vocabulary that survives a reorganisation. How to write the protocol into the team's playbook so the next research project starts from a behaviour specification by default. How to coach a junior researcher through their first behaviour-change diagnosis. The half-day workshop deck included.

How this addresses your situation

Specific modules that map to what you said you are dealing with.

Your commissioner has set a behavioural target and the previous research round did not move it. Modules 1, 2, 7 reset the framing and produce a diagnosis the commissioner acts on.

You are about to start discovery for a high-stakes service redesign. Modules 2, 3, 5, 6 set up the protocol so the discovery itself is behaviour-anchored from day one.

You have rich interview data and the synthesis is not landing as a clear direction. Modules 7, 8, 11 turn the data into a diagnosis, a map, and a write-up that authorises action.

You have a recommended change ready and need to prove it works before rollout. Modules 4, 9, 10 design and read a defensible field test inside a public-sector timeline.

What you get with this course

Twelve written modules with downloadable templates and worked examples from civic-service projects.
Behaviour-specification brief template, recruitment screener, interview guide skeleton, COM-B synthesis matrix, journey-map behavioural overlay, field-test plan, and write-up templates.
Three end-to-end worked case studies: a benefits-uptake project, a frontline-staff tool-use project, and a service-recovery project.
A hand-built implementation playbook tailored to the specific behaviour, service, and team you are working on right now, delivered alongside course access.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1

Within 24 hours, account in the learning environment provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook delivered alongside it.

Weeks one to two, modules one to four, behaviour specification drafted for a current project.

Weeks three to five, modules five to seven, fieldwork and synthesis on that project.

Weeks six to eight, modules eight to ten, intervention design and field test instrumented.

Weeks nine to ten, modules eleven and twelve, write-up authorised and protocol shared with the team.

Before and after

Before

Discovery rounds produce thick insight, the service team is grateful, the deployed change is cosmetic, and the behavioural metric the commissioner cares about barely moves. Research is seen as upstream of the real work.

After

Every research project starts from a signed behaviour specification, runs a diagnostic protocol, ends with an authorised intervention and a measured field test, and feeds a written practice the rest of the team can pick up. Research is seen as the work.

What happens if you do not address this

The commissioning side of public-service work is moving towards behavioural outcomes as the success measure. Researchers who continue to deliver generative discovery against behavioural briefs will see their recommendations diluted and their seat at the service-design table narrow. The craft gap closes in months, not years, once the protocol is in hand.

Who it is for

User researchers, service designers, and engagement leads in local government, central-government digital services, NHS, housing, charities, and public-facing UX consultancies, who already run competent discovery work and are now being asked to demonstrate behaviour change as the outcome. Five or more years in research or service-design practice. Comfortable with semi-structured interviews, journey mapping, and synthesis. New to or intermediate with COM-B, the Behaviour Change Wheel, EAST, and the MINDSPACE family of frameworks, and wants a working protocol rather than an academic overview.

Who this is NOT for. Academic behavioural scientists running RCTs in lab settings. Marketing CRO specialists optimising e-commerce conversion. Researchers whose remit is generative discovery only with no accountability for a behavioural metric. Anyone looking for a generic UX research bootcamp.

How it arrives

Text-based course in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable templates and worked examples for every module, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.

Time investment. Around four to six hours per module, depending on how deeply the templates are applied to a live project. Most learners complete the course over eight to ten weeks while running a real behaviour-change research project alongside it.

Why $199 is the right number

An academic behavioural-science course teaches theory without the public-service operational reality. A generic UX research bootcamp teaches discovery craft without the behavioural diagnostic layer. A consultancy engagement delivers one project's worth of behaviour-change work without leaving the protocol behind. This course leaves the protocol, the templates, and the worked examples in your hands and applies them to one live project as you go.

FAQ

I already use COM-B occasionally. Will this feel basic?

No. The course assumes familiarity with the framework's names. The work is in turning it into a running protocol, with interview guides, synthesis matrices, journey-map overlays, and write-up templates that survive contact with a service-design team and a commissioning conversation.

Does this work outside local government?

Yes. The worked examples sit in local authorities, central-government digital services, NHS, housing, and charities, because those are the contexts the protocol was sharpened in. The structure transfers to any public-facing service where the success measure is a behavioural metric.

Can I run a field test without an A or B test platform?

Yes, and module nine addresses exactly that constraint. Most public-service field tests use a phased rollout, a geographic comparison, or a before-and-after with a matched comparison group rather than a randomised platform. The course walks through which design fits which constraint.

Is the implementation playbook generic?

No. The playbook is hand-built around the specific behaviour, service, and team you tell me about after enrolling, and is delivered alongside course access. It is not a template you adapt, it is the diagnostic, the intervention shortlist, and the field-test plan for your project.

30-day money-back guarantee. If after a week of working through the materials this is not what you needed, reply to the receipt email and a full refund is processed. No questions, no forms.

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.