1 Introduction
1.1 The strength of a small trigger
1.2 The concept of “shikake”
2 Shikake definition
3 Psychological and physical triggers
3.1 Psychological triggers
3.2 Physical triggers
3.3 Psychological and physical triggers
3.4 Challenges for Shikakeology
4 Shikake cases and mechanisms
4.1 Cylinder
4.2 Tiny shrine gate
4.3 Urinal fly
4.4 Speed camera
4.5 Piano stairs
5 Patterns of best practices
5.1 Utility of patterns
5.2 Patterns from knowledge
5.3 Patterns from procedures
6 Shikake triggers
6.1 Shikakes as patterns
6.2 Shikake triggers
6.2.1 Physical triggers
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The “Auditory” category represents the effect of situation change expressed by the types and rhythms of sound. Sound attracts immediate attention. As we already described, The World’s Deepest Bin makes a longer than expected falling sound to attract people’s attention (Volkswagen 2009).
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The “Haptic” category represents the effect of stimulus given by forces, vibrations, temperature, and/or motions to feed back information about targets. For example, when a car runs over a rumble strip on the road, the driver is alerted by the tactile vibration and audible rumbling. The direct feedback works immediately without requiring careful consideration.
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The “Olfactory” category represents the effect of the power of scent that influences people’s behavior. For example, city gas in Japan was originally odorless, but a stinky onion scent was purposely added to make people notice gas leaks. Furthermore, smell is strongly associated with our experience of everyday living and can be used as a trigger to set a mood. The scent of fresh waffles, for example, stimulates the appetite of passersby to influence them to purchase the waffles.
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The “Taste” category represents the effect of palate, which makes people aware of the taste. For example, a campaign for mint-flavored parking tickets allows people to experience the flavor of a new product when they drive into a parking lot and put it in their mouth. In this case, the taste stimulus becomes a trigger to make people aware of the flavor (Yamamoto 2013).
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The “Visual” category represents the effect of visualization to make people aware of visible or invisible information. For example, visualization of the number of steps counted by a pedometer (e.g., Fitbit2) becomes a trigger to encourage people to exercise more. If people set a goal as 10,000 steps/day and they have achieved 7,000 steps, they might push themselves to walk another 3,000 steps.
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The “Analogy” category involves the use of associations of well-known artifacts in a different context or situation to make people imagine how to use the artifact or what might happen. For example, a tiny shrine gate makes people think of an actual shrine gate, gives people the impression of the surrounding area being holy, and eventually makes them hesitate to litter (see the example in Sect. 4.2).
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The “Perceived affordance” category represents the quality of an object by which people can easily understand how to use or how to behave in a situation (Norman 2010). The perceived affordance is a clue to be interpreted meaningfully whether it is incidental or deliberate. For example, the shape of a door handle gives people the understanding of how to use it, and lines on a parking area guide people to park their bikes between or along the lines.
6.2.2 Psychological triggers
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The “Challenge” category describes the trigger that sets an unwritten goal in people’s minds. The challenge urges people to become involved, although they do not have to. A fly target in a urinal in Sect. 4.3 offers a challenge to hit it, and men do not easily escape this temptation.
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The “Dissonance” category indicates that people tend to avoid dissonance. If there is a consecutive picture on the spine of a series of books, people are enticed to put the books in order to see the picture correctly.
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The “Negative expectation” category directly affects our survival instinct to avoid risk, fear, pain, and displeasure. This category is realized by a trigger that makes people perceive negative feelings. For example, a speed bump on a road makes drivers slow down to reduce the shock of impact.
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The “Positive expectation” category is a trigger that arouses people’s curiosity by using a shikake to make people excited by imagining what might happen. For example, as we already introduced in Sects. 3.3 and 6.2.1, The World’s Deepest Bin provides us with a positive expectation by the longer than expected falling sound. This category is the source of positive feelings such as pleasure, fun, and hope.
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The “Reward” category involves a straightforward approach to providing something valuable in order to encourage people to willingly change their behavior. For example, a free coffee campaign for police officers will increase their visits and eventually improve the security of the establishment. Benefits such as discounts and bonus points are also considered as rewards.
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The “Self-esteem” category represents people’s desire rooted in their thoughts, beliefs, and consciousness. People tend to adhere to what is commonly thought of as desirable in terms of logic, rationality, stability, and honesty. For example, transparent trash bins elicit pro-social behavior because people want to maintain their self-esteem (see Sect. 1.2 for details).
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The “Being watched” category describes the feeling of other people observing you. Detecting eyespots is an innate ability we acquired to survive in the wild, and it can become a powerful trigger to influence people’s behavior. In addition to eyespots, we feel like we are being watched due to unfamiliar changes in the environment, for example, blue-colored streetlights and surveillance cameras.
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The “Social norm” category represents the effect of implicitly required standards, manners, or morals from which people are compelled not to deviate. For example, littering in a public space is an undesirable behavior that goes against a social norm.
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The “Social proof” category describes the effect where people assume others’ behavior as the correct behavior. As the effect is particularly prominent in ambiguous situations, people follow the same behavior as others to conform to the social proof. The effect also induces what we call the “snowball effect” phenomenon, where a small trigger causes a big change, like a snowball becoming bigger as it rolls down a hill. The same phenomenon is true for people’s behavior: a person’s behavior change causes others’ behavior to change. For example, a long waiting line in a shop becomes a social proof that the shop is popular, so more customers join the line.
7 Shikake trigger matrix
Auditory | Haptic | Olfactory | Taste | Visual | Analogy | Perceived affordance | Sum | |
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Challenge | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 14 |
Dissonance | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 18 |
Negative expectation | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 15 |
Positive expectation | 11 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 9 | 42 |
Reward | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Self-esteem | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 12 |
Being watched | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 13 |
Social norm | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
Social proof | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 15 |
Sum | 22 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 37 | 38 | 33 | 138 |