18. Dan Makoski (Chief Design Officer at Lloyds Banking Group)

Real World Behavioural Science

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Stu is joined by Dan Makoski; an executive that brings an organisation’s deepest purpose to life by weaving technology and strategy together through brilliant design.

Dan is Chief Design Officer at Lloyds Banking Group, leading a multi-disciplinary human-centred team with the goal of helping Britain prosper through empathetic & pioneering design.

He was Head of Design at Walmart (the Fortune 1), started Project ARA at Google, designed the original Surface at Microsoft, led design research globally at Motorola, and was the first VP of Design at Capital One.

Dan knows seven versions of the running man & in addition to being bald, Dan & Stu (& finance & health), have lots in common.

Dan talks about his experiences of connecting a historically transactional world with real human behaviour. The pair discuss the fact that heavily regulated industries like health, finance & education are risk averse due to their importance, & therefore suffer from the unintended consequence of lack of creativity & human focus. They also discuss the need to flip our approach to language...
"Banking has operated so far on the presumption that to help people, they need to make people financially literate. What we're explaining is that banking has to learn the language of people."
Dan explains simple approaches to adopt when beginning the process of designing around people, including developing personas, scenarios & interactions to better respond to human behaviour. He explains how through extensive research, Lloyds have moved from a "customer journey" approach to a "life journey" approach to help people connect banking with relatable life moments.
He also shares example of using behavioural economics in practice, including the locus of control, and how, implemented in the design of banking products, it helps people make better financial decisions.
Stu & Dan discuss the similarities between health & financial wellbeing, the "goalposts" of relative progress vs absolute success & the feelings of guilt and shame associated.
Dan closes with positive messages that industries are moving in the right direction towards a human centred approach & hopes that once the pandemic has gone, the financial honesty & human focus will remain.

• The Social Dilemma
• Dan: website, linkedin, twitter
• Nudgestock presentation - 1:41:54
• Thisismoney.co.uk article
• Fintech Futures article