INITIAL INTENT
When filmmaker Carly Williams and I first met over a year ago, we quickly discovered a shared vision: to do our part in making the world better. We decided to join forces, combining our skills and experience—mine in research and design, hers in storytelling and filmmaking—to inspire individual behavior change that contributes to a better world.
Initially, we thought we’d simply make a documentary. That’s how most documentaries begin—with creators deciding what they believe the world needs to see. It’s also how most startups begin—with founders convinced they know what the world needs. But that top-down approach is often flawed. It’s why most documentaries fall flat and why more than 90% of startups fail.
We committed to doing things differently—grounding everything in UX research to deeply understand people, meeting them where they are, and then using design and storytelling to spark meaningful, lasting change.
CONDUCTING RESEARCH
More than 300 researchers, designers, and filmmakers from around the world shared our vision and joined us. They began by reviewing the relevant scientific literature to identify which individual behavior changes would most effectively address the global challenges they had chosen to focus on—such as climate change, human illness, biodiversity loss, ethical AI adoption, and more.
After a period of introspection to assess how closely their own behaviors aligned with the evidence, the teams conducted original research studies to understand how aligned others were with these findings—and to uncover the key barriers preventing broader adoption of the desired behaviors.
What they discovered was both revealing and pivotal: creating a documentary alone wasn’t the most effective way to reach people where they are, nor was it enough to support them on their journey toward change. This research directly shaped our design process—from ideation to storyboard—and led to a key insight: we needed to build an entire ecosystem. One that could not only inspire change in a variety of ways, but also offer support tailored to how people actually want to be supported.
HBW ECOSYSTEM
As the illustration shows, our behavior-change ecosystem begins with social media campaigns designed to spark inspiration and awareness. But we also learned that digital outreach alone wasn’t enough. To truly meet people where they are, we needed to go beyond the screen—so we’re also planning in-person activations to bring these ideas to life more tangibly.
To support individuals on their change journey, we’re developing several key tools: a GenAI-powered bot built on a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework to answer questions using only trusted, curated information; a digital community platform for asynchronous peer-to-peer exchange; and monthly live Zoom meetups for real-time connection.
The AI bot’s implementation is guided by the recommendations developed by our AI research team—including energy-efficient processing, multimodal interaction (text and voice), and design safeguards to reduce the risk of digital dependency or “digital dementia.” Each element of this ecosystem is grounded in UX research and built to support behavior change in ways that are intelligent, ethical, and human-centered.
TEAM STRUCTURE AND FLOW
The storyboards that emerged from our research teams—while varied in content and focus—shared striking structural similarities. Most included both an inspirational trigger (such as a social media campaign or in-person activation) and a sustained support mechanism (such as an app or digital community) to help individuals maintain their behavior change. Recognizing that it would be impractical for each team to independently develop full-scale campaigns, platforms, or applications, Carly and I decided to form new cross-functional teams—shown in black squares on the visual—with specialized expertise in areas like social media campaigns, website development, AI bot design, and community platform implementation.
At the same time, we were deeply committed to honoring the cohesion and momentum of the original project teams—shown in red circles—based on strong feedback from participants who wanted to remain intact. Two of those teams, in fact, will be directly collaborating with the new specialist groups: the EthnoTrust team, which focused on AI best practices, is now working with the AI bot team, while the Habit Heroes team, which proposed a digital community, is collaborating with the community implementation group.
The in-person activation teams are also joining forces to co-design reusable materials for events and workshops. Meanwhile, all remaining core teams along the bottom row of the visual will work alongside the new central teams. One team has also proposed a monthly challenge model to sequentially spotlight each major behavior-change theme. Under this model, each team will partner with the:
Social media team to co-create challenge-specific campaign content
Website team to ensure relevant materials are available online
AI bot team to integrate challenge-related trusted data into the assistant
Community team to provide moderators with topical expertise for digital forums and monthly meetups
This new structure enables us to scale efficiently while preserving the integrity and enthusiasm of the original teams—and ensures that each challenge we tackle benefits from deep research, cohesive storytelling, and sustained community support.
NEW ADDITIONAL SKILLS
Leading this organization continues to be an absolute delight—especially because people regularly reach out asking how they can get involved. In just the past few months, we’ve welcomed around 20 new members. To ensure everyone is meaningfully engaged, we asked both new and existing members to complete a discipline and skills survey. Based on the results, we’ve thoughtfully assigned team members to the new cross-functional teams. Some existing members are also generously contributing to both their original teams and one of the new ones.
The survey also helped us identify a few remaining gaps—critical roles we’re now actively looking to fill. We’ve posted these open volunteer opportunities on our website and are currently seeking:
A Social Media Manager
A Development Project Manager/Scrum Master
Several General Project Managers
Additional Visual Designers
A GenAI RAG Developer
If you or someone you know might be a fit, please check out the new Volunteer Openings page on our website for more details and application instructions. We’d love to hear from you.
HAVING IMPACT
Carly and I are incredibly excited to be entering this production phase alongside the amazing members of this organization. We’ve already witnessed meaningful behavior change among our teams—and now we’re building on that foundation to deliver impact on a much larger scale.
Our commitment to UX research remains at the core of everything we do. It grounds our decisions in real human needs, behaviors, and insights—ensuring that what we create isn’t just innovative, but truly impactful.
This project is also somewhat novel in its approach to research. While many organizations have research teams, it’s unfortunately common for their insights to be overlooked or only selectively applied. As a result, too many leaders miss the opportunity to fully realize the impact they could achieve. From Day One, Carly and I made a different choice. We committed to letting the research lead—and we’ve stuck to that promise.
Initially, we believed our primary output would be a documentary. But the research told us otherwise. It showed us the need for a broader ecosystem of support and inspiration—across digital and in-person experiences. That’s what we’ve built, and that’s what we’ll now bring to life.
We’re also excited to document this journey—showing how these teams turned research into action, and how that action leads to measurable behavior change that helps create a better world. That story will be told in the documentary we eventually produce—not as a starting point, but as a reflection of the real-world impact we’ll have achieved together.
To everyone who’s helped us get to this point—thank you. Carly and I are deeply grateful. And we’re energized and honored to continue this journey with all of you as we work together to deliver real impact, at scale, for a better world.