Theory-driven design strategies for technologies that support behavior change in everyday life

Abstract

In this paper, we propose design strategies for persuasive technologies that help people who want to change their everyday behaviors. Our strategies use theory and prior work to substantially extend a set of existing design goals. Our extensions specifically account for social characteristics and other tactics that should be supported by persuasive technologies that target long-term discretionary use throughout everyday life. We used these strategies to design and build a system that encourages people to lead a physically active lifestyle. Results from two field studies of the system-a three-week trial and a three-month experiment-have shown that the system was successful at helping people maintain a more physically active lifestyle and validate the usefulness of the strategies.

Mobile Interfaces for Better Living: Supporting Awareness in a Smart Home Environment

“…An example of notification interfaces being leveraged in an integrated living space is Intel Research Seattle's UbiFit Garden system, with the central premise to foster more regular physical activity through the use of mobile displays, on-body sensing, and journaling. Results from preliminary field studies have shown UbiFit Garden's effectiveness in helping people maintain a more physically active lifestyle and provide evidence validating the usefulness of interactive technologies such as notification interfaces in supporting health-related behavioral change [8].…”

User preferences for multi-device context-aware feedback in a digital coaching system

“…The participants of the user evaluation were asked for their opinion about the way the feedback was presented. Users stated that feedback presented by an ECA can be more motivating: "When a person or a face is talking to me, it feels more personal addressed to me" 3 For more information about Elckerlyc on Android see http://youtu. be/Ow-EDHqRgvU.…”

“…Awareness of one's own behaviour and the consequences for one's health is one of the key processes for health behavior change (e.g., [3,16]). To induce improvements in the selected behavioural domains, we focus on creating awareness of users' own behaviour and on the personal consequences of their behaviour in terms of blood glucose levels, physical activity and medication intake.…”

Office Workers’ Perceived Barriers and Facilitators to Taking Regular Micro-breaks at Work: A Diary-Probed Interview Study

“…It is positive that an increasing number of PT studies are underpinned by psychology theories, such as goal-setting theory [5,10] and Transtheoretical Models [5]. However, the selection of theory is still heavily reliant on the designer's instinctive understanding of the behaviour and existing knowledge of psychology theories, rather than a systematic and theoretically guided process [13].…”