About the Author

Stephen is Principal Scientist at HelloWallet, where he's worked for four years to develop applications that help users take control of their finances. He is a behavioral social scientist by academic training, and works with behavior economists and psychologists to conduct research on behavior change, especially around savings and spending behavior. The impetus behind writing this book comes from two places. First, it comes from his experiences at HelloWallet. HelloWallet has confronted first-hand the frustrations and failures that come from the two most common approaches to behavior change: telling people what to do (without taking into account their psychology), and trying to directly apply the research literature (without focusing on the quality of the product itself). Second, he is a co-founder of community of like-minded practitioners, "Action Design DC", where he has had the opportunity to learn from other companies attacking the same problems of practical behavior change. He has a thorough knowledge of the academic literature, experience applying it in product development, and expertise in experimental design and statistical modelling.