Behavioural design is a sub-category of design, which is concerned with how design can shape, or be used to influence human behaviour. All approaches of design for behaviour change acknowledge that artifacts have an important influence on human behaviour and/or behavioural decisions. They strongly draw on theories of behavioural change, including the division into personal, behavioural, and environmental characteristics as drivers for behaviour change. Areas in which design for behaviour change has been most commonly applied include health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety and social context, as well as crime prevention.

Design for behaviour change developed from work on design psychology (also: behavioural design) conducted by Don Norman in the 1980s. Norman’s ‘psychology of everyday things’ introduced concepts from ecological psychology and human factors research to designers, such as affordances, constraint feedback and mapping. They have provided guiding principles with regard to user experience and the intuitive use of artefacts, although this work did not yet focus specifically on influencing behavioural change.

The models that followed Norman's original approach became more explicit about influencing behaviour, such as emotion design and persuasive technology. Perhaps since 2005, a greater number of theories have developed that explicitly address design for behaviour change. These include a diversity of theories, guidelines and toolkits for behaviour change (discussed below) covering the different domains of health, sustainability, safety, crime prevention and social design. BJ Fogg’s work at the Stanford Behavior Design Lab popularized a clear model of behavior design and a set of small-step practices that teams can apply without heavy research overhead. With the emergence of the notion of behaviour change, a much more explicit discussion has also begun about the deliberate influence of design although a review of this area from 2012 has identified that a lack of common terminology, formalized research protocols and target behaviour selection are still key issues. Key issues are the situations in which design for behaviour change could or should be applied; whether its influence should be implicit or explicit, voluntary or prescriptive; and of the ethical consequences of one or the other.

In 1969, Herbert Simon's understanding of design as "devising courses of action to change existing situations into preferred ones" acknowledged its capacity to create change. Since then, the role of design in influencing human behaviour has become much more widely acknowledged. It is further recognised that design in its various forms, whether as objects, services, interiors, architecture and environments, can create change that is both desirable as well as undesirable, intentional and unintentional.

Desirable and undesirable effects are often closely intertwined whereby the first is usually intentionally designed, while the latter might be an unintentional effect. For example, the impact of cars has been profound in enhancing social mobility on the one hand, while transforming cities and increasing resource demand and pollution on the other. The first is generally regarded as a positive effect. The impact of associated road building on cities, however, has largely had a detrimental impact on the living environment. Furthermore, resource use and pollution associated with cars and their infrastructure have prompted a rethinking of human behaviour and the technology used, as part of the sustainable design movement, resulting for example in schemes promoting less travel or alternative transport such as trains and bike riding. Similar effects, sometimes desirable, sometimes undesirable can be observed in other areas including health, safety and social spheres. For example, mobile phones and computers have transformed the speed and social code of communication, leading not only to an increased ability to communicate, but also to an increase in stress levels with a wide range of health impacts and to safety issues.

Taking lead from Simon, it could be argued that designers have always attempted to create "preferable" situations. However, recognising the important but not always benevolent role of design, Jelsma (2006) emphasises that designers need to take moral responsibility for the actions which take place with artefacts as a result of humans interactions:

"artefacts have a co-responsibility for the way action develops and for what results. If we waste energy or produce waste in routine actions such as in the household practices, that has to do with the way artefacts guide us"

In response, design for behaviour change acknowledges this responsibility and seeks to put ethical behaviour and goals higher on the agenda. To this end, it seeks to enable consideration for the actions and services associated with any design, and the consequences of these actions, and to integrate this thinking into the design process.