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.