Below are key takeaways from Lindsay Juarez’s keynote presentation at Experimentation Island 2025, where she shared how the Irrational Labs 3B Framework can transform product design.
“Would you take an apple?”
About 60% of people usually say yes when asked this hypothetical question. But what happens when people actually encounter apples in the real world? That’s where things get interesting—and where product designers can learn from behavioral science.
A large entertainment company in LA called Irrational Labs because they wanted their employees to eat healthier. According to employee surveys, the staff wanted that too, and they said they liked apples. So the company put out free apples—which went uneaten.
Why? Because the apples were placed right next to the french fries. Environment trumps intention.
People Don’t Do What They Say They’ll Do
This illuminates a core truth about human behavior: what people say they want to do and what they actually do are often dramatically different. Not because they’re lying, but because in the moment of decision, context and environment exert tremendous influence.
This is the essence of behavioral economics and behavioral design. Most people aren’t at extremes – they don’t always grab an apple or always reach for fries. The majority fall somewhere in the middle, and their choices are heavily influenced by context.
The question isn’t “How do we convince people to make better choices?” but “How do we design environments that naturally lead to better behavior?”
This is where the 3B Framework comes in—a practical approach to behavioral product design built from a decade of research and testing.
The 3B Framework: A Better Path to Behavior Change
After a decade of applying behavioral science to product design challenges, we’ve distilled our approach into a three-part framework:
- Identify Key Behaviors: What specific action do you want users to take?
- Reduce Barriers: Make it easy and obvious for users to do the thing you want.
- Amplify Benefits: Give people a compelling reason to act now.
Let’s explore how this framework can transform your approach to product design.
1. Identify ONE Key Behavior (And Get Uncomfortably Specific)
Most products fail not because they lack value, but because they optimize for vague outcomes rather than concrete behaviors.
It’s not enough to say you want users to “engage more” or “be healthier.” You need to identify the specific action that will drive your desired outcome. And I mean uncomfortably specific—if you’re not slightly uncomfortable with how specific your behavior is, you’re doing it wrong.
Consider film director Christopher Nolan, who wanted “more energy on set.” Rather than vaguely encouraging everyone to be more energetic, he identified a specific behavior: “actors and crew stay ready to film at all times.” His solution? He banned chairs from the set. Without the option to sit down, people remained standing and ready to work. While I’m not necessarily endorsing this specific approach, it illustrates how a precise behavior focus leads to targeted solutions.
Some examples of well-defined key behaviors include:
- New loan customers open a savings account during a first visit to the credit union
- Newly approved cardholders complete two-factor authentication setup during first login
- Returning shoppers add at least three items to cart before checkout
The most important part of behavior change is identifying and tracking the behavior you seek to change. As managers, we’re good at tracking outcomes like conversion and retention, but we must go a step further and track the specific behaviors that drive those outcomes.
2. Reduce Barriers: The Path of Least Resistance
We follow the path of least resistance. Given an option, we do what’s easiest or most automatic. Even small frictions matter enormously, affecting whether people take action or not.
Take One Medical, for example. They had a problem: employers were giving their employees free access to the One Medical app (a $100 value), but employees weren’t booking appointments despite the clear benefits of easy preventative care access.
When we examined the user flow, we discovered several critical barriers:
- Present bias: The website lacked focus on immediate pain points for patients needing care today, and no reason to engage for those who weren’t actively feeling sick
- Choice overload: After signing up, users faced 20+ providers with no distinguishing information
- Lack of endowment: There was no suggestion of which provider was “theirs”
Combined, these barriers created perfect conditions for procrastination—without decision aids, the easiest choice was no choice at all, instead sticking with what they knew.
Our solution wasn’t what you might expect. We actually added a screen to the flow, presenting users with a single recommended provider and day-of availability, framed as “Your next step is to meet a provider.” This clear direction reduced psychological friction by making the decision simpler.
But of course, reducing logistic friction is also great for business:
- Rolling out 1-click checkout on a shopping platform increased purchases by 8.3% and spending by 29.7% in the first three months
- Ride-sharing apps like Uber disrupted taxis by making rides faster & cheaper, and they reduced psychological friction & uncertainty by letting you track your driver’s progress
- Netflix’s autoplay feature produced “by far the biggest increase in the Hours Watched KPI of any feature ever tested“
These examples show how removing small frictions can unlock significant metrics and change behavior at scale.
3. Amplify Benefits: Give Users a Reason to Act NOW
Jerry Seinfeld perfectly summarized present bias when he talked about “Night Guy” making decisions that “Morning Guy” regrets. Night Guy stays up late watching TV, while Morning Guy suffers the consequences.
This is present bias in action—we prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. When designing products, we must recognize users are likely in what behavioral scientists call a “hot state”—busy, distracted, and focused on immediate gratification rather than long-term value.
The Benefits Matrix: Future vs. Now, Functional vs. Emotional
Benefits generally fall into a matrix with two axes:
- Timeframe: Future vs. Now
- Type: Abstract vs. Concrete
The most powerful benefits sit in the top-right quadrant: immediate, specific, and emotional rewards. Think about brushing teeth—we know it prevents cavities (future functional benefit), but what actually motivates daily brushing is that minty fresh feeling (current emotional benefit).
This is what we call “doing the right thing for the wrong reason.” Sometimes the path to behavior change means leading with immediately rewarding benefits rather than important-but-distant ones.
Make Benefits Immediate and Concrete
Challenger bank Chime gained ground against established banks with a clear, immediate value proposition: “Get your direct deposit up to 2 days early.” Not “better banking” or “improved financial health,” but a tangible, immediate value.
Similarly, when Apple launched the original iPod, they didn’t market it as “5GB of storage”—a technical spec few would find meaningful. Instead, they made it concrete: “1,000 songs in your pocket.”
Duolingo dramatically increased conversion by 20% by letting users experience a lesson before signing up. They understood that an immediate taste of value overcomes the friction of account creation.
TL;DR: Change the Environment, Not the Person
Remember: “Night Guy” isn’t reading the small print, and he’s not always doing what’s best for “Morning Guy”. So don’t try to give users more information or education on why they should act differently. Meet them where they are.
Don’t try to change the person—change the environment. Change the context where decisions happen. That’s what the 3B Framework enables: identifying key behaviors, reducing barriers, and amplifying benefits.
This approach works because it acknowledges how humans actually behave, not how we wish they would. When apples compete with french fries, willpower rarely wins. But smart product design can.
🔑📈 Enjoyed these examples of how you can change behavior meaningfully through behavioral design? We can help your product unlock big impact. Get in touch to learn more about our consulting services. Or learn more behavioral science by joining one of our bootcamps.