Behavioral Audit

What is a behavioral audit?

A behavioral audit is a structured examination of a service, product, or process to identify factors that may help or hinder a specified behavior. The term describes a class of applied reviews rather than one universally standardized, validated instrument.

How to conduct a behavioral audit

Start with the outcome you want and check that the proposed behavior is a plausible way to achieve it. Then specify whose behavior you are examining and follow the steps they encounter. The COM-B and Behaviour Change Wheel framework (Michie, van Stralen, and West, 2011) provides one way to organize questions about capability, opportunity, and motivation.

The framework can organize the investigation. It cannot replace observations of what people actually do.

Behavioral audit examples

• Product design: examine a signup flow, including instructions, required information, and points where people stop.
• Employee engagement: investigate a specific action, such as using a feedback process, instead of treating engagement as one behavior.
• Marketing: examine the message, the choices offered, and the steps between interest and purchase.
• Policy implementation: follow how someone learns about a program, applies, and receives the service.

Each example focuses the audit on a particular process.

What should a behavioral audit produce?

A useful audit separates observed problems, possible explanations, and proposed changes. For example, a long application form might be an observed obstacle; attributing abandonment to a particular psychological mechanism requires more evidence. Proposed improvements should be tested against meaningful outcomes.

For the broader design context, see the behavioral design overview.