Implementing a New Daily Habit:

An Intervention by Brian Pesin and Dana Sittler

habits.stanford.edu

Challenge:To encourage people to incorporate eating vegetables, an important and healthy flex behavior, into their daily routines.Time limit (intervention period): May 22-May 29 (1 week)

Daily Vegetable Consumption Challenge

Persuasive Purpose:• To convince five college students to incorporate

and strengthen a vegetable-eating habit, a healthy flex behavior, into their daily routines.

Industrial Design:

+ Eat veggies!

+

User Description

• College students who have…o Established mealtimeso Food prepared for them, with vegetable optionso A group of people with which to dineo For the purpose of this study, the ladies of Delta Delta

Delta

• 9 participants total

Storyboard: Victoria Eats Veggies

1. Victoria receives a text alert 10 min prior to

mealtime reminding her to eat veggies at dinner.

2. Victoria proceeds to the kitchen and gets in line to

get food for her meal.

3. Victoria sees a sign next to the daily vegetable description with her

initials that again reminds her to take veggies and reply.

V.V.Eat

veggies and text!

4. Victoria eats the veggies on her plate, and responds

to the reminder text to track her veggie eating.

5. Victoria receives a summary email mid-week

tracking her and her friends’ veggie eating

progress.

6. The summary email and the initials on the veggie reminder sign inspire Victoria to verbally

remind her sorority sisters to eat veggies.

VeggieAlerts - Textmarks

From: 41411Don't forget to put veggies on your plate @dinner tonight(& eat them too!) reply 'v' to this to conf

Features/Functionality

• Reminds person to put a veggie on their plate at dinner

• Two triggers Timed text message hot trigger - just before dinner

Just a few clicks to reply Personalized reminder at the scene

• Holds people accountable both for themselves and for their friends

• “Fun punishment” for those who fail to eat veggies

Results

-6/9 (67%) completed the task 100% of the time

-2/9 (22%) completed the task 4 of the 5 days

-1/9(11%) dropped the project

User Commentary

"The simple reminder made a huge difference." 

"For me, knowing the other girls were doing it to made it easier - it also made me want to eat MORE veggies than they did."

"The thing is, I'm not sure if I'll do it when the veggies aren't sitting there waiting for me this summer. And the reminder was key - I needed the reminder."

"The sign made me think, 'Oh man, if I don't eat the veggies, everyone will know.'"

Results

• Social aspect was keyo Accountability for yourself and for peers

• Hot trigger was successfulo Text message remindero Physical reminder sign at the veggie station 

• Difficult to expand past the campus environment, however successful within this context