veggitop design brief
DESCRIPTION
By Kristy Allenby & Marcus CatsouphesTRANSCRIPT
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
VeggiTopA conceptual design by
Kristy Allenby & Marcus Catsouphes
Design ChallengeEncourage vegetable eating business school grad
students to eat more of them over 5 days
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
VeggiTop
Persuasive Purpose Increase graduate business school students’ vegetable
consumption by changing their computers’ desktop background for 5 days
Industrial Design
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Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Our Users Are
• Business school grad students who…
• Already like vegetables
• Want to increase consumption of vegetables
• Own personal computers
• Have habits of doing work every day at their desks
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
How it works…
Flexing His Behavior: Every time Matt sees the desktop image during the week, he eats a vegetable from his bowl.
Tracking Behavior: Each night for 5 days, Matt receives a text asking how many extra veggies he ate. He replies back to the text message.
Setting Up the Cue: He sets the photo as his computer’s desktop background.
Increasing Ability: Matt makes sure he has his favorite veggies on hand. He keeps a bowl of his favorite veggie on his desk next to his computer.
Following Up: One week later, Matt receives an email survey asking him some questions about the intervention’s effectiveness
Signing Up: Matt, a grad student, receives an email on Monday morning with a picture attached. The email explains that he should eat a vegetable each time he sees the picture on his desktop for the next 5 days.
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Prototype of VeggiTop
We provide participants a chance to choose the desktop photos they like best. Some examples:
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Features/Functionality
• Participants choose the image they feel will best motivate them, and they set it as their desktop
• Participants place a bowl of vegetables next to their computers, so they are easily accessible
• Progress is reported nightly via text message
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Theoretical Justifications
• Our main research question is to find the simplest behavior that matters. Since these are flex behaviors, we are hypothesizing that a very small cue may encourage the desired result
• This design attempts to “piggy back” an increased vegetable consumption habit on business school students’ extensive daily computer usage
• Because business school students sees their computers’ desktop background multiple times per day, the cue can be repeated a lot
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Results of User Testing
• Forthcoming : )
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Shortcomings of Design
• Unclear if the desktop will become “stale” after 5 days
• Will the cue of seeing the new picture be “hot” enough a trigger?
• Do people want vegetables sitting on their desks all day?
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Expansion - What else is possible?
• If this works…
• We’ll have a clear indication that a very small behavior change can lead to formation of a new health habit
• This could be easily expanded to allow many people to download backgrounds
• Users could potentially be cued to refresh the background periodically, or perhaps even have software written that does a refresh automatically
Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu
Next Steps in Design Process
• Develop instructions
• Make sure participants have a week’s worth of vegetables
• Deploy the pilot