Now widely recycled

I’ve recently read Nudge by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein. Since I finished it, I’ve been thinking about how nudges apply to software development. The obvious answer is in UI development as nudging users can make a huge difference to their behaviour, a well thought out registration process can greatly increase sign up.

But consider how the following nudge works, at the weekend I washed out a carton of Convent Garden soup to put in the recycling, when I noticed on the bottom of the carton it read “Now widely recycled”. To me this is a very powerful nudge as it adds a social pressure, everyone else is recycling so you should be too.

This applies to software development as well. If you work to ensure a high standard of quality in your code the people you work with will feel the social and professional pressure to do the same but for every small dirty hack you add and every corner you cut to make something work you are saying it is ok for everyone else to do the same.

Dave Allen in his column in UK Wired How to reap what you sow touches on a similar topic, in a US theme park it is grounds for dismissal for any employee to pass a piece of litter without picking it. Its easier to keep a clean theme park clean so it follows it’s easier to keep clean code clean.