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Case Study: Increasing levels of Bushfire prepara:on and ac:on
Our Challenge Despite strong a.tudinal inten2ons to prepare for bushfires, the behavioural reality is that
people get busy with other things in life and do not do it.
When asked what would help you to do it, they typically say “all the informa2on in one place”. However, in the development of a booklet that delivers all of this informa2on the behavioural response is oCen overwhelm or overconfidence, both resulted in inac2on.
The NSW Rural Fire Service challenged us to use the latest insights from Behavioural Science to help them develop new tools that would increase the incidence of people
taking appropriate ac:on in being prepared for bushfires.
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Case Study: Increasing levels of Bushfire prepara:on and ac:on
BE Inspired Methodology
BE Lens Review of current Bushfire Planning and Prepara:on Tools – to hook out exis2ng triggers and barriers and develop behavioural hypotheses as to what is impac2ng behaviour.
Insights & Ac:va:on Workshop – To share and workshop how Behavioural Economics can improve exis2ng planning tools and surface new ideas for how to op2mise their behavioural effec2veness.
BE inspired design brief for new planning tools – a clear strategic design brief, using a set of BE guidelines to inform all elements of the design, was wriOen and brief to the design agency.
The Behavioural Architects then worked in collabora2on with the design agency to provide BE feedback on crea2ve development.
Once the new tool had been designed The Behavioural Architects conducted contextual tes:ng of the new tools with residents in 3 fire hot-‐spots to evaluate its success in driving the desired behaviour.
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Case Study: Increasing levels of Bushfire prepara:on and ac:on
Despite strong aJtudinal responses around the importance of the issue as well as inten2on to prepare, the overwhelming behavioural response was no ac:on at all. There were a number of factors contribu2ng to this inac2on, in par2cular limited Mental Availability for the urgency of ac:on and a sense of overwhelm around what needed to be done. This behavioural barrier was exacerbated by a mul:tude of extremely dense and Cogni:vely Straining planning materials. Several BE inspired recommenda:ons were made, here are just a few:
1. Chunking planning and prepara2on behaviours into ‘Four simple steps to get ready for a bushfire’ -‐ a clear sequence beginning with a discussion. I.e. vastly simplifying their exis:ng tools with a focus on making it easy! (Chunking, Cogni:ve Ease)
2. Crea2ng checklists, colour coding, diagrams, using white space and icons to facilitate the an2cipa2on of an easy experience (Heuris:cs, Priming, Cogni:ve Ease)
3. Using visual Saliency and Priming, along with other techniques, to get people to iden2fy with the ‘Hot Zone’, I.e. what it will be like if a fire strikes near them. Subsequently using this self-‐iden2fica2on to mo2vate people take ac:on when they are in a cold state.
Based on our BE inspired recommenda2ons the NSW Rural Fire Service completely redesigned their planning materials to op:mise their behavioural effec:veness state-‐wide.
Key Insights and Impact