New York City
Behavioral Design Team
An embedded team working across city government agencies for 10 years to increase program efficiency, save tax dollars, and boost satisfaction of both residents and workers.
What We Do
Every interaction between a city agency and its employees or residents presents an opportunity to offer the best that government can be. But because everyone involved in that interaction is human — whether they’re creating a government program, administering it, or receiving the benefits of it — the experience is often riddled with common quirks of human behavior. We forget things. We make inaccurate assumptions. We get discouraged by small hassles, even when the benefits of doing something are big.
Our embedded behavioral design team leverages decades of evidence about human behavior to redesign programs so they work better for everyone involved.
The result? Government is more efficient; taxpayer dollars are better utilized; staff is more motivated and satisfied; and residents lives are better.
Evidence-based designs that work
We leverage social norms by fostering positive peer influence to encourage engagement with city services.
We use personalized reminders and prompts to enable timely action around sign-ups and deadlines.
We reduce friction by making government systems and processes easier to navigate.
We simplify decision-making and clarify options to improve matching residents to the services that fit best.
We make it easy to understand agency offers and penalties so people can act in their best interest while juggling busy and financially constrained lives.
Our Impact
We address four key challenges every government faces: matching residents to the programs that best meet their needs; getting them to participate in those programs; keeping them in the programs for their duration; and ensuring they follow the rules and requirements of the programs. By addressing the root causes of issues, our work has led to system-wide improvements at negligible cost. Here’s some of what we’ve helped New York City achieve over the past decade:
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↑ 56%
in parking ticket payments by redesigning communications to make it easier to pay and clarify the consequence of inaction
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↑ 84%
in Black firefighter candidates’ test-filing rates after introducing fee waivers
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↑ 30%
in on-time SNAP recertification with redesigned notification letters
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↓ 85%
in the number of misfiled 311 service requests by redesigning the smartphone app’s menu and reframing its feedback function
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↓ 81%
in college freshman recidivism by creating email and text message reminders for eligible students to submit renewals
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↑ 109
subsidized transit access for people with disabilities by creating an incentive program for taxi drivers to drive wheelchair accessible vehicles
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