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Fall '22
Inspire
Designed health software to ethically encourage positive behavior
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Background
Many people have fit bits or other health watches, but often times they cheat the system to increase their steps. This project's goal was to design a watch that creates intrinsic motivation that leads to lasting changes in the user's behaviors
My Contributions
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Actively contributed to the ideation phase, collectively developing new concepts and ideas with the team
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Played a key role in conducting comprehensive interviews and research, contributing significantly to the project's foundational research phase
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Collaboratively participated in the creation of user personas to deepen our understanding of the target user group
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Took a lead role in crafting wireframes for the final design, ensuring a well-structured and user-friendly interface
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Led the development of the final prototype, bringing the project to its tangible, user-tested form
Research and user group
Research
To gain a better understanding of how to promote a healthy lifestyle, we dove into fundamental research on psychological theories on motivation and behavior changes to fuel our design. We learned about different conditioning methods and found that positive reinforcement is the most effective when paired with delayed conditioning.
Main takeaway
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Intrinsic motivation is the most successful at creating long lasting change
We also found that a main deterrent from leading a healthy lifestyle was fear of judgement from others. Based off this knowledge, we decided to design a product that addressed these concerns.
User Group
Our primary audience is college students who lack internal internal motivation to work out. Even when they do find the motivation, it unfortunately comes from a place of insecurity, and they never sustainably go to the gym.
Why are they scared of being judged?
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They don't know
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how to use the equipment, and would be embarrassed if they messed up
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how to do the regular workouts out the gym
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the health benefits of working out; they know it’s there but they don’t know the specifics
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They need help finding internal motivation and ways to work out that aren’t just going to the gym
Key Takeaway
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There is no consistent motivation to work out
How did we turn our findings into a cohesive design?
Different Directions
There were many different directions we could have taken our design. We knew from our research that we had to incorporate positive reinforcement and delayed conditioning.
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Focus on creating intrinsic motivation
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Increasing knowledge of the importance of having an elevated heart rate for extended periods
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Work on removing fear of embarrassment from publicly working out
Instead of going to the gym to publicly work out, we decided to promote walking as a healthy alternative. This enables users to reach their health goals while performing inconspicuous workouts. We would also incorporate creating intrinsic motivation for the users.
Final Design
The watch can
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Give random facts every day at different times that show how walking and an elevated heart rate promotes health
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Develops intrinsic motivation
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Randomly gives validation during and after workouts
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Psychology tells us that delayed conditioning is the most effective type of motivation
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It only gives information about health benefits of walking and elevated heart rate, not other workouts traditionally done at gyms
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This allows the user to blend into a crowd, no one will know they are exercising, and no one will judge them for simply walking
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Reminds them that they have goals
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Sets achievable and realistic goals
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Research showed setting these goals are important for providing motivation
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Phone App
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The phone app has similar features as the watch does, but can go more in depth into the goals the user has set, how much their walking has increased, and more facts about why walking is good for their health.
Final remarks
We discovered during our design process that the most important factor in creating lasting change in behavior, was intrinsic motivation. Another method that can encourage behavior is positive reinforcement paired with delayed conditioning. All of these fundamental psychological phenomenon were implemented into every design choice that was made.
If time had not been a constraint, we would have done more product testing on our users to get more feedback. This could be accomplished by measuring whether or not a prototype leads to a significant increase in walking over a period of time. This would empirically show whether or not this product successfully uses intrinsic motivation to significantly increase the amount a user walks.
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