The director of food services for a big-city school system hatches an interesting idea: If she changes the arrangement and display of school food, will it alter kids' decisions about what to eat?
Without modifying menus, she decides to place the desserts first on the cafeteria line in one school, last in another and on a separate line altogether in others. She varies the location of other foods as well. The results are dramatic. Simply by rearranging the cafeteria, the consumption of many items increases or decreases.
This example is a product of our imaginations, but we know from similar real-world experiments -- in supermarket design, for example -- that the arrangement of settings is important to the choices consumers make. Behavior can be greatly influenced by small changes in the context. And the influence can be exercised for better or for worse. In the cafeteria, no doubt a careful designer could get kids to eat more healthy food and less junk.
Those who design supermarkets and school cafeterias are engaged in what we call "choice architecture": the organization of the context in which people make decisions. Choice architects are everywhere. If you design the ballot that voters use to choose candidates, you are a choice architect. If you are a doctor and must describe the alternative treatments available to a patient, you are a choice architect. If you design the form that new employees fill out to enroll in the company healthcare plan, you are a choice architect. If you are a parent, describing possible educational options to your son or daughter, you are a choice architect. If you are a salesperson, you are a choice architect (but you already knew that).
There are many parallels between choice architecture and more traditional forms of architecture. A crucial parallel is that there is no such thing as a "neutral" design. Cognitive psychology and behavioral economics have shown that small and apparently insignificant contextual details can have a major effect on people's behavior. Researchers tell us that if a candidate is listed first on the ballot, he may well get a 4% increase in votes. If a doctor says 90% of patients are alive five years after a certain operation, far more people will have the operation than if the doctor says 10% of patients are dead five years after having it.
