When launching a product feature aimed at influencing user behavior, the potential for unintended consequences is high. These consequences, if overlooked, can lead to frustration, disengagement, or even a complete misalignment between what you intended and how users react. The INCASE framework helps product designers and managers identify and manage these risks, ensuring that your intervention has the desired impact without negative side effects.
Every design or intervention introduces new behaviors into a system. While we might have clear intentions—promoting healthier habits, reducing environmental impact, or increasing user engagement—unintended outcomes are common. These range from overwhelming system demand to confusing non-target audiences. By understanding these consequences early in the process, you can prevent your design from backfiring.
For instance, you might encourage users to exercise more by introducing a fitness tracker feature. But what if some users, unable to keep up, become discouraged? Or what if another group feels pressured, leading them to abandon the feature entirely? These kinds of backfires are preventable with a structured approach like INCASE.
The price of good intentions
At its core, the challenge of unintended consequences is about the gap between intention and perception. As designers, we might envision a feature that promotes health or productivity, but users could interpret or interact with it in ways we didn’t expect. Unintended consequences are the outcomes we didn’t plan for and certainly didn’t want—results that emerge from complex user interactions in unpredictable environments. These consequences come in many forms, from desirable surprises to harmful missteps, and understanding them can make or break the success of a feature.
Take, for example, a feature encouraging users to walk 10,000 steps a day. The intention is simple and positive: promote regular exercise. But suppose some users begin obsessively tracking their steps, leading to overexertion and burnout. Or, imagine another group feeling discouraged because they can’t consistently meet the goal. Suddenly, what was meant to foster health is creating anxiety and disengagement. The INCASE framework enables us to uncover these possible consequences ahead of time, preparing us to manage them—or even redesign the feature entirely if needed.
6 frames for anticipating unintended consequences
The INCASE framework breaks down the various aspects of unintended consequences into six categories. Each category helps designers assess potential outcomes and make better-informed decisions about how to mitigate negative results.
Intended behaviors: overload from success
Sometimes, even achieving the desired behavior can lead to problems if the system isn’t prepared to handle the change. If too many users adopt a behavior too quickly, your infrastructure might not be able to keep up.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| Will systems cope with a sudden increase in demand? | Encouraging reusable bottles leads to a surge in discarded plastic bottles before infrastructure can adapt. |
| What happens if more users than expected adopt the behavior? | Customer service gets overwhelmed by high demand for incentives. |
| What if users change their behavior faster than expected? | A subscription service offers discounts but runs out of stock too quickly, frustrating customers. |
Even when users act as intended, operational capacity can become an issue. For example, a promotional offer might flood customer support with requests, making users feel neglected or underserved.
Non-target audiences: the unintended reach
Your product or campaign may reach audiences you didn’t plan for. This can lead to confusion, misinterpretation, or backlash from people who weren’t supposed to be involved.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| What might people outside the target audience think or do? | A health campaign aimed at young adults might alarm older generations. |
| Will people recognize they are the intended audience? | Non-target groups may feel excluded or ignored, creating negative perceptions. |
| Could others mistakenly think the message applies to them? | People outside your intended user group might feel misled and adopt incorrect behaviors. |
A classic example is a fitness app aimed at young users that inadvertently engages older users, who then find the app inappropriate for their needs. This can lead to complaints, bad reviews, and reduced effectiveness of the overall campaign.
Compensatory behaviors: users seeking balance
Sometimes, users compensate for their positive actions by engaging in offsetting negative behaviors. This compensatory behavior can undermine the very goal of your feature.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| How might users compensate for the behavior change? | Users adopting eco-friendly habits might feel justified in taking more frequent flights. |
| Are there loopholes that undermine the objective? | Customers gaming rewards programs by purchasing and returning items to claim incentives. |
| Could this create perverse incentives? | An electric car rebate program might encourage people to splurge on luxury goods, offsetting environmental gains. |
This is often seen in health apps where users justify unhealthy habits because they’ve met a daily fitness goal. By anticipating these compensations, you can design measures to reinforce the primary goal without allowing users to fall into counterproductive behavior patterns.
Additional behaviors: ripple effects
Encouraging one behavior can lead to other, sometimes unrelated behaviors. These additional actions may either help or hinder the desired outcome.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| What additional behaviors might be triggered? | Encouraging public transport use increases demand for parking near stations. |
| What behaviors might users adopt to enable the change? | Users buy more unhealthy snacks after receiving discounts on healthy meals. |
| How will users view themselves after adopting the behavior? | Users who join a gym might reward themselves with unhealthy foods, feeling they’ve “earned” it. |
A campaign promoting physical activity might inadvertently lead to increased car use if public transport isn’t sufficient, negating the environmental benefits of the initial intervention. Identifying and managing these additional behaviors ensures your product or campaign stays on track.
Signaling: messages that shape behavior
Your product or campaign sends signals about what is acceptable or expected, even if those signals are unintended. These signals can shape public perceptions and influence behavior in unexpected ways.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| What signals does the campaign send? | An anti-smoking message might reinforce the idea that smoking is common among certain groups, normalizing it. |
| How will users interpret the relationship between the messenger and receiver? | A condescending tone might create resistance rather than engagement, leading to disengagement or backlash. |
For example, a campaign meant to reduce alcohol consumption might show scenes of heavy drinking before addressing its negative consequences, inadvertently normalizing binge drinking for some viewers. Designers need to ensure that the implicit signals align with the intended message to avoid reinforcing the very behavior they are trying to change.
Emotional impact: how users feel
User emotions are powerful drivers of behavior. A design or campaign that triggers strong negative emotions can lead to disengagement or rejection, even if the underlying message is positive.
| Questions to Ask | Examples of Unintended Consequences |
|---|---|
| What emotional response might this trigger? | A fear-based health campaign might lead users to avoid the message altogether. |
| Will negative emotions help or hinder the intended change? | Overly harsh messaging can backfire, causing users to resist the advice being given. |
| Could the design cause psychological reactance? | Users may rebel against a feature that feels restrictive, feeling their autonomy is threatened. |
Fear-driven campaigns often have the unintended consequence of causing users to disengage. If the message is too negative, users might tune out or even act against the desired outcome, leading to a backfire effect. Anticipating and managing emotional impact is crucial for maintaining positive user engagement.
A matrix for consequences
To further clarify how various consequences fall within the design process, we can break them down into four key categories based on their desirability and whether they are anticipated or unanticipated. Here’s a simple table that categorizes the different types of consequences:
| Anticipated | Unanticipated | |
|---|---|---|
| Desirable | Goals | Serendipities |
| Undesirable | Trade-offs | Classic Negative Unintended Consequences |
- Goals represent the desirable and anticipated outcomes you strive for in your design.
- Trade-offs are negative effects that you expect but accept as part of the process.
- Serendipities are pleasant surprises—positive outcomes you hadn’t foreseen.
- Classic Negative Unintended Consequences are the worst-case scenarios: unexpected and undesirable results that can derail user experience.
By classifying consequences in this way, designers can better prioritize which potential outcomes need mitigation and which can be embraced or tolerated as part of the design process.
Applying the INCASE framework to your own work
To prevent unintended consequences, product teams should incorporate INCASE early in the design process. This framework can be applied through a few key steps:
-
Identify potential outcomes
Start by listing all possible reactions and behaviors your feature could trigger. Go beyond the obvious and consider each INCASE category. What behaviors might the feature encourage? Who might it reach inadvertently? What additional actions or workarounds could emerge? Getting diverse perspectives from cross-functional teams can add valuable insights here. Ask yourself how users might respond in unexpected ways, what ripple effects could occur, and how non-target groups might be affected. -
Prioritize risks
Not all unintended consequences are equally risky. Some may have minimal impact, while others could significantly disrupt the user experience. Assign a likelihood and severity rating to each potential consequence to determine which ones require attention. Evaluate the likelihood and impact of each potential outcome, focusing your efforts on the most significant risks. -
Develop mitigation plans
Once risks are identified, create mitigation strategies to address them. Whether it’s refining messaging to avoid compensatory behaviors or ensuring infrastructure can handle demand, early action is key to preventing backfires. For high-risk unintended consequences, brainstorm mitigation tactics. Could messaging be adjusted to reduce compensatory behaviors? Is there a way to fine-tune your feature’s design to manage emotional responses? -
Monitor and adjust
After your feature goes live, keep an eye on user feedback and engagement metrics. Use this data to track whether any unintended consequences are materializing. If they are, make adjustments as needed—whether that means tweaking messaging, altering functionality, or even rolling back the feature if necessary. Be prepared to make adjustments based on real-world usage, and stay responsive to emerging unintended consequences.
The INCASE framework helps product designers anticipate and manage the full range of potential outcomes. By systematically working through each category—Intended Behaviors, Non-Target Audiences, Compensatory Behaviors, Additional Behaviors, Signaling, and Emotional Impact—you can ensure your designs are more resilient to backfires.
Avoiding unintended consequences isn’t just about damage control; it’s about creating more thoughtful, adaptive designs that are aligned with real user behaviors. When you account for both expected and unexpected outcomes, you position your product or campaign for long-term success.
- IN CASE: A behavioural approach to anticipating unintended consequences by Alex Aiken
- 6 frames for anticipating unintended consequences by Vishal George
