Behavior Design Fundamentals.
Taught by Ashwin Rajan, this 12-week course gives product, design, research, strategy, and innovation leads a solid practical grasp of Behavior Design. Twelve weekly Core Themes draw from behavioral economics, cognitive science, social psychology, and design thinking — paired with hands-on exercises, cases, and peer collaboration. About 3.5 hours per week: two hours of live class plus 1.5 hours of practice.
- Lessons
- 12
- Commitment
- ~3.5 hrs/week
- Taught by
- Ashwin Rajan
How the course works.
Theory
Theoretical deep dives
Each week introduces dozens of dominant principles, heuristics, thinkers, frameworks, models, and papers defining the field.
Practice
Learn by doing
All theory is paired with practical exercises, design problems, industry cases, and reading — done individually and with peers.
Network
A peer cohort across industries
Cross-pollinate with practitioners across roles and regions, and join the alumni network for ongoing collaboration.
Twelve weeks, in order.
Introduction
Core themes, methodology, the state of the industry, ethics, and a first tour of the Behavior Design Canvas.
Nudging & Its Limits
The history and theory of Nudge, its key thinkers, what it's good for, what it leaves out, and where it's heading.
Cognitive Dissonance & Biases
How dissonance drives behavior, its relationship to cognitive biases, and the main categories and types you need to recognise.
This lesson is available on request.
Belief
The role of beliefs in the behavior stack — how they form, how they link to identity and habit, and how Liminal Thinking applies.
This lesson is available on request.
Motivation
Foundational models of motivation, when to use which, and how motivation connects to emotion, rewards, and habits.
This lesson is available on request.
Decision Making & Choice Design
How humans actually choose: decision theory essentials, inter-temporal choice, and choice architecture in practice. Delivered in two parts.
From Persuasion to Engagement
Dominant strategies and models, cognitive artefacts, behavioral disruption, and the ethics of engagement design.
This lesson is available on request.
Getting Gamification Right
What gamification is and isn't, the leading frameworks, non-digital applications, and how it backfires when misused.
Habit Design
Competing habit models, the difference between habit, routine, and ritual, and designing for long-term behavior change.
This lesson is available on request.
Behavior Design Process
The end-to-end process for taking a behavioral problem from brief to intervention — synthesising the frameworks, tools, and methods from the previous weeks into a repeatable workflow.
Designing Nudges & Behavior Change
A hands-on synthesis class: applying everything from the course to real nudge and behavior-change interventions.
This lesson is available on request.
Behavior @ Scale
The behavioral data science frontier — analytics, experimentation, ethics, and the path to behavioral AI.
This course teaches the Canvas. Get the templates.
The Behavior Design Canvas — PDF and Figma templates — is the working surface every lesson refers back to. Download it before Lesson 2.
Want to bring this to your team?
The Bootcamp turns this course into 2–3 days of hands-on work with your real product challenge.