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Why customers do what they do – and how to test it

People say one thing in surveys and do another at the checkout. If you want to understand decisions, you have to observe them – ideally in an experiment.

A hand pointing at something outside the frame during a working session

In brief

What is behavioral design?

Behavioral design shapes offers, processes and communication so that they fit how people actually make decisions. Its foundation is behavioral economics: people decide by habit, effort, price perception and what others do – rarely by pure deliberation. We look for the friction in flows and offers, change it deliberately and prove the effect by experiment.

Why the usual approach falls short

Surveys measure intentions. Revenue comes from behavior. In between lie friction, habit, price perception and the question of what everyone else is doing.

Around 70 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned. Almost one in five shoppers drops out because the process is too long or too complicated.

Baymard Institute · 2026 · average across 50 studies

What we do

  • Find friction and remove it – the cheapest intervention is the step you delete. We go through application flows, checkouts and onboarding step by step.
  • Review price and offer architecture – categories, anchors, defaults, framing: does the model behave the way it should?
  • Prove the effect – behavioral online experiments and field tests, specified in advance and analyzed cleanly.
  • Segment audiences by behavior – by attention and motivation instead of age and income.

Cases

Three examples, three numbers

European retailer · Newsletter

Which behavioral tools raise the purchase rate?

From Alexis Johann’s consulting work

The retailer wants to improve the reach and purchase rate of its newsletters. Instead of relying on gut feeling, we test systematically: nudges, choice architecture, price anchors, sending frequencies – variant against variant. What works stays; what doesn’t is dropped.

+12 %
conversion, statistically significant – with a lower drop-out rate at the same time

Loyalty club · Sign-up flow

A very long flow – and almost nobody consents

From Alexis Johann’s consulting work

During sign-up, the loyalty club loses members’ consent to data tracking. We analyze the flow step by step: order, defaults, wording, the moment the question is asked. Consent becomes understandable, fair – and the obvious choice.

90 → 10 %
opt-out rate for data tracking

Media company · Subscription landing page

More subscriptions through personalization and choice architecture

From Alexis Johann’s consulting work

The page where the subscription decision is made gets a new choice architecture: personalized wording, fewer and more clearly ordered options, one recommended choice. Tested against the existing page.

+20 %
more subscriptions sold

The framework

Not every customer needs the same thing

We sort audiences by two questions: is the topic on their radar at all? And do they want to? That gives four groups – and four different jobs to do.

  • Ready · activate. Stop persuading – make acting easy. Every bit of friction costs conversion directly here.
  • Skeptical · build resonance. The topic is present, the benefit isn’t.
  • Dormant · make it visible. The motivation exists, but the topic doesn’t reach them. Often the best ratio of effort to effect.
  • Distant · solve it structurally. Persuasion is most expensive here. Defaults work regardless of attention.

From the Behavioral Tool Kit

Three of 39 tools

The method
Knowledge nugget Evidence: robust

Doing nothing is doing the right thing

The desired option is preselected. The default is the best-documented lever in choice architecture (meta-analysis by Jachimowicz et al., 2019) – it works without anyone having to be persuaded.

Check first: what is the default today – and whose behavior does it reward?

Knowledge nugget Evidence: conditional

Cut, sort, recommend

At a tasting stand with 24 jams, more people stopped, but only 3% bought – with 6 varieties it was around 30% (Iyengar & Lepper, 2000). To be honest about it: across many studies the average effect is small. Cutting alone is not enough.

Cut AND sort AND mark one recommended option – and test it in your own context.

Knowledge nugget Evidence: robust

Most people don’t say no – they forget

Procrastination, not rejection, is the normal case. In megastudies with hundreds of thousands of participants, simple, well-timed reminders produced around 2 percentage points more action (Milkman et al., PNAS 2021/2022) – at almost no cost.

The wording with the strongest effect: “Reserved for you.”

Every tool in the kit carries an evidence label – robust or conditional. We say what is well documented and what isn’t.

Formats

From review to evidence study

Behavioral Review1 consulting dayFixed price EUR 3,000A list of findings on a concept, pricing or membership model – with before-and-after suggestions.
Friction Audit2–3 weeksDrop-off points, causes, prioritized interventions.
Test Sprint4–6 weeksThree to five hypotheses in A/B tests, one proven result.
Evidence study3–6 monthsAn experiment with a scientific advisory board, citable.

Fixed prices are net, plus VAT.

Experience

Where our expertise comes from

Alexis Johann is the lead author of the studies on the value of journalistic content for search – with academic supervision from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, cited internationally in the debate between platforms and publishers.

Before that he was a partner at FehrAdvice & Partners in Zurich, one of the world’s leading consultancies for behavioral economics. Projects on loyalty clubs, financial products and public services date from that time.

The studio The method Request a Behavioral Review

Short answers

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between nudging and manipulation?

A nudge makes the choice easier that is in the person’s own interest, and leaves every other option open. A dark pattern benefits only the provider and works only as long as nobody notices it. Our yardstick: the measure must still hold up when it is explained openly.

Why aren’t customer surveys enough?

Surveys measure intentions; revenue comes from behavior. In between lie friction, habit and price perception. That is why we observe decisions, ideally in an experiment.

How do you prove the effect?

With behavioral online experiments and field tests, variant against variant. We specify in advance what is being tested. What works stays; what doesn’t is dropped.

Where do you start?

With the Behavioral Review: a list of findings on a concept, pricing or membership model with before-and-after suggestions, in one consulting day at a fixed price of EUR 3,000 net. The Friction Audit takes two to three weeks and shows drop-off points, causes and prioritized interventions.

How well documented is all this?

To varying degrees, and we say so. Each of the 39 tools in our Behavioral Tool Kit carries an evidence label: robust or conditional.

The method: CAMI and the Behavioral Tool Kit All cases (in German)

Let’s talk about your dragons.

There is one guarding every treasure. Thirty minutes, no obligation.

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