Applied Behavioral Design (ABD)
Master behavioral design with 9 weeks of live group training.
Then solidify your expertise with on-demand learning.
Join our students from beginners to pros in top companies:
Learn applied psychology, step-by-step
ABD is our LIVE tutorial class. Over 9 weeks, we’ll guide you through our AI-integrated behavioral design process.
We’ve structured ABD for both beginners and experienced professionals alike.
We only teach ABD LIVE to provide a proper learning experience.
By the end of ABD, you’ll understand the behavioral design process and feel confident in your ability to build psychology-inspired technology.
You’ll also get practice applying everything you’ve learned in DBC and EDP.
Your 9 Week Learning Schedule
To keep you focused, our LIVE classes follow a fixed 9 week schedule.
Each lesson covers another step in the behavioral design process.
To help you internalize the lessons, you’ll enjoy a blend of lessons, interactive exercises, discussions, and more.
We only offer this class LIVE so you can ask questions, get feedback on your work, and participate in a proper learning environment.
Typically we run our tutorials on Thursday at 13:00 EST. But check the schedule to be sure.
We also record all tutorials, so if you have a scheduling conflict, there’s no problem.
Here’s what we cover in each tutorial:
Tutorial 1. Define your product & research plan (DBC)
We’ll kick-off the term by meeting everyone, getting our project documents sorted, and enjoying a tour of the entire process. Then we’ll start the first lesson on how to plan a behavioral design project.
Tutorial 2. Map your audiences & behavioral insights (DBC)
We’ll quickly cover the behavioral design process, then take a deep dive into segmentation and persona design from a behavioral science and psychometric perspective.
Tutorial 3. Build psychometric segments & personas (DBC)
This critical tutorial teaches you how to select the best psychological principles and theories for your particular project. You’ll learn this advanced topic by using our cloud tools that simulate the process of psychological research.
Tutorial 4. Select a theory of change & personality (DBC)
This lesson will deepen your skills in selecting behavior change theories, and using psychological models to inspire creative strategies and interactive content.
Tutorial 5. Build behavioral prototypes & guidelines (DBC)
This tutorial shows you how to translate behavioral insights into standard prototyping tools. You’ll gain a new perspective on building psychology-inspired branding guidelines, product specifications, color palettes, wireframes, and interactive prototypes.
Tutorial 6. Target emotions that motivate behavior (EDP)
For this tutorial, we’ll revisit our audience research based on the neurobiology of emotion and motivation. This class rethinks digital strategies, UX, and content based on the emotions that drive and reinforce online behavior.
Tutorial 7. Experience emotions that drive behavior (EDP)
Through group exercises and psychometric polls, we’ll dive deep into the emotions that shape online behavior. This class will get you to re-examine your entire approach from an emotional design perspective. You’ll start to rethink everything at this point.
Tutorial 8. Prototype behavioral user journeys (EDP)
Building on the prior lesson, we’ll examine stage-based design and look at long-term processes of change. We’ll apply this to marketing funnels, long-term customer lifecycles, and detailed user flows. At this point, you’ll update your prototypes with deep insight into your users, aiming for that smooth polish.
Tutorial 9. Behavioral research for products & campaigns
In our final tutorial, we’ll show you the ropes of tech-focused behavioral pilot testing. If you want to put your prototype to the test, send it in. We’ll use your mocks in the class to gather feedback and help drive your project forward.
The Behavioral Design Method
The Behavioral Design Method blends classic behavioral science with modern design practice, so it fits perfectly with the most popular tech-industry creative product design processes. You’ll learn to translate psychology into digital products, with templates, tools, and models ready for your next project.
Planning
Lay the political and practical foundation. You’ll map out your project, its logic model, and your measurement plan. AI helps you turn them into a complete project plan built to make an impact.
Researching
Understand your competitive environment, your audiences, and what it takes to move them. You’ll work through templates that capture each audience’s emotions, motivation cycles, and a theory of change. Our behavioral science software will predict psychological strategies, while AI helps you pull everything together into a solid behavioral insights report.
Innovating
This is the creative side of behavioral science. You’ll build psychology-inspired strategies for your brand, your products, and your campaigns.
Prototyping
Take a behavioral science approach to prototyping. You’ll work through a pipeline of proven psychological strategies, and AI pulls your hard work together into specifications for your brand, products, and digital campaigns.
Piloting
Test before you invest. You’ll blend behavioral science, emotional design, and UX research to spot problems and fine-tune, iterating until your product is motivating, easy to use, and solid on launch.
Launching & optimizing
Launch, then start your optimization research. You’ll keep improving the product based on how it performs in the real world.
Evaluating & learning
At a key milestone or the end of the product’s lifespan, take stock of what worked and what didn’t. The lessons feed your next chapter, and your next product builds on everything you’ve learned.
Behavioral Design Whiteboarding
Our entire behavioral design process fits on a single interactive Miro board, with every step laid out in order, so you and your team always know where you are and what comes next.
You’ll work alongside AI on the same canvas, using the only human-AI interface language built for whiteboards. It helps AI make sense of your group’s messy, half-formed thinking and turn it straight into specifications, prototypes, mockups, research summaries, and visuals. It’s the most collaborative way to run a behavioral design project, and it’s easily the most fun.
The board stays yours after the live tutorial. You’ll copy any board into your AI and get back the resources you need, whether you’re working on your own projects or your clients’.
Behavioral AI Helps You at Every Step
You’ll work through every step of the behavioral design process with AI at your side, from your first planning session through to your final evaluation.
At each step, AI takes on the routine work, sharpens your brainstorming, and turns your team’s thinking into design mockups, prototypes, research summaries, and visuals. You’ll spend your time where it counts: on the design decisions that change user behavior.
You’ll run it on the agentic AI you already use, whether that’s Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, or your own setup. And you’ll keep your license to our behavioral design prototyping tools, so you can put the same system to work on your own projects and with your clients.
Training Materials
ABD includes additional training materials for the behavioral design process:
Step-by-step templates
You’ll get a suite of step-by-step behavioral design templates. Each template includes instructions, a case study and follows a clear progression from start to finish.
Design publications
You'll also receive a suite of publications on psychological design principles, theories of change and emotional drivers of digital behavior.
Behavioral software
You'll use software that simulates behavioral research, suggesting psychological strategies for each of your audiences.
Private support group
Our Facebook support group is active during the tutorial term, where you can post your questions and share examples.
How We Run Our LIVE Tutorials
We’ve spent over a decade teaching in small classrooms before moving online.
That’s why our online tutorials might not be what you’re used to.
Here’s how we run our tutorials:
Fun and engaging
Some people teach behavioral science like a dull analytical task—but not us! We’ll teach you how to translate classic behavioral science into fun and engaging exercises that lead to implementable prototypes. You’ll learn how to achieve more in an enjoyable, creative format.
Interactive learning
To hone your skills in behavioral design, you need to become an active participant. You’ll learn through interactive exercises, new lessons, and psychometric polling.
Student directed
As a student-guided live course, we’ll invite you to vote on how we run the term and adapt the class. We’re always keen to hear how we can improve our training, which keeps our training flexible.
Coaching approach
The entire class is structured like a group-coaching program to help you develop new skills. You’ll have a chance to put your knowledge to the test, get feedback and even submit prototypes for user research. We want you to succeed.
A real LIVE class
Dr. Cugelman runs his tutorials like a real classroom. Feel free to keep your camera and mic on and ask questions. As a live tutorial, Dr. Cugelman encourages students to feel comfortable asking any questions and interacting at any point.
“After class” support
We don’t officially offer this, but Dr. Cugelman normally sticks around after each tutorial to go over student homework and take up any issues. This is an informal practice that Dr. Cugelman arranges on a case-by-case basis each term.
Plain language & down to earth
We’ll help you understand concepts from psychology and neuroscience in plain language with down-to-earth examples.
Behavioral design sprint
Some students learn best by working hands-on. The term runs like a design sprint, where you’ll move from a concept to a final prototype. Have a passion project? Bring it to class, gain a great learning experience, and finish with polished prototypes.
Certification
Upon completion of the live tutorials, you'll be eligible to take the online test for the Applied Behavioral Design Certificate of Mastery (ABDC). Each enrollment includes three attempts to earn the credential.
Learn Street-Smart Behavioral Science
The moment you start using psychology in tech projects, expect a wild ride.
Theory rarely goes to plan. Politics matter.
And you’re usually working with legacy software, small budgets, and big egos.
We want you to succeed. So here’s how we teach street-smart behavioral science:
Avoid common traps
Sometimes the best way out of a problem is to avoid it entirely. You’ll learn why psychology typically backfires, how to spot the risks, and when to steer clear. And you’ll learn to win over skeptics before they sabotage your project.
Navigate politics and big egos
We use formal project management approaches that stop problems before they start. You’ll win political support, pacify big egos, and ground your work in stakeholder-centered strategy.
Use organizational psychology
Tech projects that ignore people are more likely to fail. We’ll teach you organizational psychology strategies that give your project a solid human foundation, and make your whole design process more engaging.
Make practical decisions
Behavioral science helps you make better, psychology-informed decisions: picking the best option, avoiding the worst, and finding wisdom when your project enters uncharted terrain.
ABD Covers Our Entire System
We take a blended training approach to our online education by combining 25 hours of video lessons with 9 weeks of LIVE tutorials.
You’ll build your foundation over two on-demand courses. The first, Psychology for Digital Behavior Change (DBC), covers digital psychology and behavioral science, teaching you how to translate psychology into digital products. Online, there are 15 hours of video lessons, which we teach over 3 days in the classroom.
Our second course is Emotional Design Psychology & Neuroscience (EDP), which explains the neuroscience of how emotions drive user behavior and teaches you how to design for specific emotions. Online, there are 10 hours of video lessons, which we teach over 2 days in the classroom.
Then, ABD helps you internalize the lessons and build new skills. In an interactive classroom, you’ll learn how to apply everything you’ve learned in our video lessons. You could say ABD is where it all comes together.
When we teach in classrooms, we weave the behavioral design process into our lessons, guiding you through the process during our lessons, scenario-based learning exercises, design challenges, and lots of hands-on exercises.
Online Education Packages
All package mix self-paced learning with LIVE, hands-on ABD classes.
Start now with self-paced learning, then once you're enrolled, sign-up for any upcoming LIVE ABD group workshop.
Digital Psychology Package
This package covers the essential principles and skills for building psychology-driven products and campaigns.
Emotional Design Package
This package covers the emotional motivators and hands-on skills for building emotion-driven products and campaigns.
Behavioral Design Complete Package
This package covers all key principles and skills for psychology-driven products and campaigns.
Need a hand?
If you need help with payment or require a custom invoice or documentation, contact us at
+1 (416) 858-2055 or team(at)alterspark.com.
Satisfaction guarantee
We know you’ll gain a lot from our training, but we offer a 48-hour window to receive a 100% refund if our online training does not meet your expectations.
See the details.
Your next steps
You’ll enroll through Teachable, our learning platform with secure payments. After, you’ll receive a confirmation with access to your on-demand lessons, tools and live tutorial signup.
Secure registration
All online payments are securely processed by PayPal and Stripe.
Have questions?
See our FAQ or contact us to learn more.
LIVE Training Schedule
Applied Behavioral Design (ABD) is our live, online group workshop, included with all training packages.
To join any ABD term, you must first enroll in a training package, then sign up for the term you wish to attend.
If a scheduling conflict comes up, we record every live tutorial and allow students to switch terms at no cost.
Applied Behavioral Design (ABD)
28 May - 23 July 2026
Completed
LIVE Online Workshop
- Format: LIVE Online Group (9 weeks)
- Facilitator: Brian Cugelman, PhD
- Dates: 28 May - 23 July 2026 (See schedule)
- Time: Thursdays (13:00-14:30 EST)
How to Enroll
To join this live workshop, enroll in any online training package with ABD tutorials.
Join thousands who’ve completed our training
From beginners to pros in top companies
Frequently Asked Questions
Guarantees and Terms
All training come with our Guarantees and Terms. Please read these before enrolling.