A growing number of information technology systems and services are being developed to change users’ attitudes or behavior or both. Despite the fact that attitudinal theories from social psychology have been quite extensively applied to the study of user intentions and behavior, these theories have been developed for predicting user acceptance of the information technology rather than for providing systematic analysis and design methods for developing persuasive software solutions. This article is conceptual and theory-creating by its nature, suggesting a framework for Persuasive Systems Design (PSD). It discusses the process of designing and evaluating persuasive systems and describes what kind of content and software functionality may be found in the final product. It also highlights seven underlying postulates behind persuasive systems and ways to analyze the persuasion context (the intent, the event, and the strategy). The article further lists 28 design principles for persuasive system content and functionality, describing example software requirements and implementations. Some of the design principles are novel. Moreover, a new categorization of these principles is proposed, consisting of the primary task, dialogue, system credibility, and social support categories.

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Persuasive Systems Design: Key Issues, Process Model, and System Features

Recent advances in small inexpensive sensors, low-power processing, and activity modeling have enabled applications that use on-body sensing and machine learning to infer people's activities throughout everyday life. To address the growing rate of sedentary lifestyles, we have developed a system, UbiFit Garden, which uses these technologies and a personal, mobile display to encourage physical activity. We conducted a 3-week field trial in which 12 participants used the system and report findings focusing on their experiences with the sensing and activity inference. We discuss key implications for systems that use on-body sensing and activity inference to encourage physical activity.

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Activity sensing in the wild: a field trial of ubifit garden

Background: Although web-based interventions for promoting health and health-related behavior can be effective, poor adherence is a common issue that needs to be addressed Technology as a means to communicate the content in web-based interventions has been neglected in research Indeed, technology is often seen as a black-box, a mere tool that has no effect or value and serves only as a vehicle to deliver intervention content In this paper we examine technology from a holistic perspective We see it as a vital and inseparable aspect of web-based interventions to help explain and understand adherence
Objective: This study aims to review the literature on web-based health interventions to investigate whether intervention characteristics and persuasive design affect adherence to a web-based intervention
Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies into web-based health interventions Per intervention, intervention characteristics, persuasive technology elements and adherence were coded We performed a multiple regression analysis to investigate whether these variables could predict adherence
Results: We included 101 articles on 83 interventions The typical web-based intervention is meant to be used once a week, is modular in set-up, is updated once a week, lasts for 10 weeks, includes interaction with the system and a counselor and peers on the web, includes some persuasive technology elements, and about 50% of the participants adhere to the intervention Regarding persuasive technology, we see that primary task support elements are most commonly employed (mean 29 out of a possible 70) Dialogue support and social support are less commonly employed (mean 15 and 12 out of a possible 70, respectively) When comparing the interventions of the different health care areas, we find significant differences in intended usage (p = 004), setup (p < 001), updates (p < 001), frequency of interaction with a counselor (p < 001), the system (p = 003) and peers (p = 017), duration (F = 6068, p = 004), adherence (F = 4833, p = 010) and the number of primary task support elements (F = 5631, p = 005) Our final regression model explained 55% of the variance in adherence In this model, a RCT study as opposed to an observational study, increased interaction with a counselor, more frequent intended usage, more frequent updates and more extensive employment of dialogue support significantly predicted better adherence
Conclusions: Using intervention characteristics and persuasive technology elements, a substantial amount of variance in adherence can be explained Although there are differences between health care areas on intervention characteristics, health care area per se does not predict adherence Rather, the differences in technology and interaction predict adherence The results of this study can be used to make an informed decision about how to design a web-based intervention to which patients are more likely to adhere

Persuasive System Design Does Matter: A Systematic Review of Adherence to Web-Based Interventions

A motivation behind much UbiComp research has been to make our lives convenient, comfortable and informed, following in the footsteps of Weiser's calm computing vision. Three themes that have dominated are context awareness, ambient intelligence and monitoring/tracking. While these avenues of research have been fruitful their accomplishments do not match up to anything like Weiser's world. This paper discusses why this is so and argues that is time for a change of direction in the field. An alternative agenda is outlined that focuses on engaging rather than calming people. Humans are very resourceful at exploiting their environments and extending their capabilities using existing strategies and tools. I describe how pervasive technologies can be added to the mix, outlining three areas of practice where there is much potential for professionals and laypeople alike to combine, adapt and use them in creative and constructive ways.

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Moving on from weiser's vision of calm computing: engaging ubicomp experiences

Persuasive technology to motivate healthy behavior is a growing area of research within HCI and ubiquitous computing. The emergence of commercial wearable devices for tracking health- and fitness-related activities arguably represents the first widespread adoption of dedicated ubiquitous persuasive technology. The recent ubiquity of commercial systems allows us to learn about their value and use in truly "in the wild" contexts and understand how practices evolve over long-term, naturalistic use. We present a study with 30 participants who had adopted wearable activity-tracking devices of their own volition and had continued to use them for between 3 and 54 months. The findings, which both support and contrast with those of previous research, paint a picture of the evolving benefits and practices surrounding these emerging technologies over long periods of use. They also serve as the basis for design implications for personal informatics technologies for long-term health and fitness support.

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Persuasive technology in the real world: a study of long-term use of activity sensing devices for fitness

We are developing a preventative health cell phone application that helps motivate teenage girls to exercise by exploiting their social desire to stay connected with their peers. We targeted girls because they are more likely to become less active throughout adolescence and are more likely to use dangerous techniques for losing weight. The intent of Chick Clique is to provide information at opportune times in order to modify the behaviors of girls and ultimately lead to improved health habits. Our study investigated how collecting, sharing and comparing personal fitness information impacts activity level and health awareness.

Chick clique: persuasive technology to motivate teenage girls to exercise

We describe a new type of threat to the Internet infrastructure, in the shape of a highly efficient but very well camouflaged click-fraud attack on the advertising infrastructure. The attack, which we refer to as a “badvertisement,” is described and experimentally verified on several prominent advertisement schemes. This stealthy attack can be thought of as a threatening mutation of spam and phishing attacks, with which it has many commonalities, except for the fact that it is not the targeted individual who is the victim in the attack, but the unwitting advertiser.

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Mona Praful Gandhi

Papers

Chick clique: persuasive technology to motivate teenage girls to exercise

Badvertisements: Stealthy Click-Fraud with Unwitting Accessories