Me-GoA conceptual captology design by

Chika Ando, Andrea Kulkarni, Ken Rafanan, and Lori Takeuchi

Design ChallengeTo design a mobile phone application that effectively

motivates young students to achieve their goals.

Time limit: 12 hours per person

Persuasive Purpose Persuade middle school aged

kids to live a healthy lifestyle. Foster enjoyment of exercise

and help youngsters make the connection between exercise and good health.

Motivate kids to develop good eating habits and help kids make the connection between diet and good health.

User DescriptionMiddle school children working

towards healthy lifestyle goals

They are: Ages 11-14 Using a computer at school or

home Parents also have access to

the Internet

Features on wireless phone

Synchronous voice communication

Asynchronous text messaging

Input what they eat Input exercise they do Pedometer

functionality Clock Synchronize with a

server GPS

To begin with A user sets his weight, height, ideal sleeping

time and “fitness challenge”, his target steps.

Daily Eat a meal and input what he eats on the phone. Pedometer counts the number of steps a user

walks and inputs other exercise manually. The condition of users is synchronized with

avatars on the virtual playground on the server. All kids can look at them and observe the condition of friends.

Features/Functionality

Ideation

Snapshots

Storyboards

Brainstorming

Ideation - Character Exploration

A Week with Me-Go

Four other kids on Aditya’s Me-Go Team also use Me-Go to record their diet and exercise activity. At any point in the day, Aditya can view who’s walked the most steps so far today. Avatars representing other teammates appear on Aditya’s Me-Go when they are walking and their pedometers are engaged.

On Saturday, Aditya logs onto www.mego.com to see how well he met his fitness goals for the week. He also compares his teammates’ performance against his own.

On Sunday evening, Aditya visits www.mego.com on his home computer to enter in his weekly diet and exercise goals. This week, Aditya decides to limit his junk food intake to three servings, and walk at least one mile per day.

Pizza or turkey sandwich for lunch? Aditya chooses the pizza, which he enters into his Me-Go. Mrs. Johri tracks her son’s entries from work, and calls Aditya to discuss his decision to eat pizza. Before lunch tomorrow, Me-Go will conveniently remind him to think twice about ordering pizza again.

A built-in pedometer tracks Aditya’s steps all day long. Aditya also enters the half-hour of soccer practice he had after school and the two extra flights of stairs he climbed between second and third periods into Me-Go.

At the end of each week, the team is awarded points for cumulative achievement among members. The goal is to outscore other Me-Go teams around the country. The Web site keeps records of past scores so that Aditya can track progress of both team and individual performances over the long run.

Prototype of Me-go

Features/Functionality

Fitness challenge and feedback Once a day, the server sends a health tip of the

day and feedback analysis to a kid and his parents.

A user sets fitness goals daily and weekly. A teacher provides physical activities or

periodical events or competition to the class. Parents work and discuss with kids about their

progress, or share the healthy lifestyle through having meals and exercise together.

Features/Functionality

Eat

Walk/

Exercise

Action Input

Kids/

Parents

Pedometer/

manual input

Server

Calculate/

Analysis

Feedback

Kids

Teacher

Parents

Theoretical Justifications Kairos: Me-Go identifies opportune moments

to guide kid to make healthy decisions Convenience: Kids can enter in diet and

exercise data on the spot Social Facilitation: Avatars and ability to

view teammates’ step counts encourage kids to perform target behaviors

Social Comparison: At Web site, kids can compare own performance with peers

Theoretical JustificationsIntrinsic Motivators:

Competition: Kids compete to see who can walk the most steps

Cooperation: As a team, kids work together to beat other Me-Go teams, or to simply outscore their own team records

Recognition: Individuals and teams are publicly rewarded before the nationwide Me-Go community for meeting/exceeding goals

User Testing

Subjects two seventh grade girls neither owns a mobile phone but have friends who do

Primary questions Would a cartoon character avatar be persuasive? Do middle schoolers set nutritional and fitness goals?

Secondary Questions What rewards would be motivating? What types of messages would be persuasive?

User Testing Results

Message Negative reinforcement

especially from authority figure would work even if automated

Rewards Subjects preferred rewards of

games, music, and money

User Testing Results

Message Negative reinforcement

especially from authority figure would work even if automated

Rewards Subjects preferred rewards of

games, music, and money

Shortcomings of Design Many middle schoolers do not have mobile

phones. Current design assumes adequate signal

coverage. Need for user input of food intake reduces

convenience and increases potential for error on exact food intake. Also causes need for user training.

Need for user input of exercise information reduces convenience and increases potential for error. Also causes need for user training.

Users may be tempted to cheat to succeed.

Expansion - What else is possible? Food intake information input – system

automatically accepts meal information from school cafeterias and restaurants.

Exercise information input – take physical activity information directly from user's body by constantly measuring the heartrate. This information could be combined with smartscale readings of body weight and body fat to arrive at a fairly accurate reading of daily caloric use.

Expansion - What else is possible? Proactive encouragement of exercise

opportunities. System informs user when physical activity of interest is available.

For example, “a pick-up basketball game is forming at your local gym” or “the park next to you has a highly rated two mile hike.”

Next Steps in Design Process Ethnographic study of target group to gather better

information on habits and behaviors Development of prototypes for more extensive user

testing to test hypotheses and guide further product development Testing audio & visual messages for

persuasiveness Identify input method for optimal convenience Build out web interface

Begin discussions with potential telecom partners to identify salient technical and business requirements

Identify appropriate opportunities for cross-marketing (e.g. sport apparel)

Me-Go Summary Goal: Promote a healthy lifestyle for middle

school students Medium: mobile phone delivery of persuasive

application making links between diet, exercise and good health apparent

Methods: Kairos principle, Convenience, Social Facilitation, Social Comparison

Room to Grow: Future product iterations increase Me-Go’s effectiveness as both an educational tool and a business platform