A Social-Centred Gamification Approach to Improve Household Water Use Efficiency

The research community is showing a growing interest in gamification and there are works showing the usefulness of gamification in different problem domains. Recently, a special interest has been given to the gamification design on systems addressing natural resource consumption issues such as to encourage efficient household water consumption. Despite the potential benefits, the gamification design method for such system is not conclusive. In this paper, we proposed a social-centred gamification approach to improve household water use efficiency. The approach firstly identified the water use related social network activities based upon existing popular social network activities. The approach then gamified each identified activity in terms of traditional instruments for improving water use efficiency and gamification rewards. The approach also used a set of indicators to explicitly detect and monitor both online social network activities and offline water use activities. With this approach the gamification effectiveness can be better traced and evaluated.ISS-EWATUS, Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management, FP7 project (grant no. 619228), funded by the European Communit

Developing persuasive interfaces

MSCC Dissertation in Computer EngineeringNowadays, computers are indispensable tools for most people. Since computers’ role is to make everyone’s life easier, systems can be built to be of even more assistance. While today people have to learn how to interact with computers, in the future, instead of having to do that, computer systems will be blended in our everyday things. It is expected that technology will come to a point where it is natural to interact with it like with every other object. Computers have been gaining their space in our lives being considered machines that can do almost anything. This master thesis has the purpose of studying how computers can be used as persuasive technology. To build persuasive systems it is important to know that humans are very different from each other. Given this idea it is of extreme importance that the system is able to determine as much aspects of the surrounding environment as it can, to process that information and interact with people accordingly. To achieve a solution that is effective for this concept, a study of persuasive systems is presented in this document. An architecture was developed in order to provide an infrastructure for the development of persuasive applications. An authoring tool was also implemented in order to allow the creation of context aware persuasive applications by users without programming skills. Furthermore, a persuasive application prototype was developed as proof of concept for this study. Usability tests were performed to analyze if users could successfully create the application prototype, named Smart Bins, using the proposed framework. Further user tests were executed with children, the target users of the application prototype, to evaluate its usability and persuasiveness. A description of the Smart Bins application as well as the results of the user tests are presented in this thesis. The results provide further understanding and new perspectives regarding the use of persuasive technologies as interactive computer products, designed to change people’s habits, therefore helping to improve human’s attitudes and behaviours towards important matters like environmental preservation

Integrating Taxonomies into Theory-Based Digital Health Interventions for Behavior Change: A Holistic Framework

Digital health interventions have been emerging in the last decade. Due to their interdisciplinary nature, digital health interventions are guided and influenced by theories (e.g., behavioral theories, behavior change technologies, persuasive technology) from different research communities. However, digital health interventions are always coded using various taxonomies and reported in insufficient perspectives. The inconsistency and incomprehensiveness will bring difficulty for conducting systematic reviews and sharing contributions among communities. Based on existing related work, therefore, we propose a holistic framework that embeds behavioral theories, behavior change technique (BCT) taxonomy, and persuasive system design (PSD) principles. Including four development steps, two toolboxes, and one workflow, our framework aims to guide digital health intervention developers to design, evaluate, and report their work in a formative and comprehensive way

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Towards the Affect of Intimacy

Abstract This thesis explores the trajectory that the developing technological fields of Ambient Intelligence and Persuasive Technologies introduce new intricate relationships beyond fundamental use and availability because they change our abilities to act. Since its classic articulation by Hegel (1927) philosophical explication of the relationship between people and technology states that technology is a mediating factor between people and the world. Associated with this view, which has characterized the resulting phenomenology and philosophy of technology for nearly two decades, is an understanding of technology as a form of alienation. In this dissertation the author shows how this old interpretation of the relationship between a person and their tool has emphasized how the person is active whilst the tool is passive. This traditional distinction fails to grasp the complex interaction between people and technology in the contemporary world. The nature of new technologies and novel theoretical work in this field suggests that this critical framework is now inadequate. Today, technology mediates the relationship between people and the world in increasingly complex and often collective ways. McLuhan (1967) stated: “Media evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one of these senses alters the way we think and act”. As Greenfield (2006) and Fogg (2002) also posit, certain Ambient Intelligence and Persuasive Technologies are in-principle shaping everyday human behaviours in radically new ways. In particular, I explore how new technologies like those developed in the Artificial Companions Project can impact on our understanding of intimacy and identity. Indeed, Ambient Intelligence Technologies may play the role of reference groups (Shibutani 1987), groups who are real or imaginary and whose standpoints are being used as the frame of reference for the human actor. Given that these technologies have continuously reconfigured identification and profiling practices, this analysis rephrases insight of philosophers like Paul Ricoeur (1990), George Herbert Mead (1959) and Helmuth Plessner (1975) to trace how: The construction of our identity is mediated by how we profile others as profiling us. Thus, new technologies can become reference groups, encroaching on our everyday activities and even affecting our moral decision-making processes. As genuine upgrades of our practical space, they are destined to play a larger formative role in people’s lives in the future. Following Heidegger in Das Ding (Heidegger 1951), Latour once framed the wider social role of technologies as res publica or ‘public things’ (Latour 2005). He pointed out that the old German word ‘ding’ etymologically did not only infer ‘material object’ but also to assembly as gathering space - that thing that can bring together what it separates. Following Latour, Verbeek states that technological ‘things’ do not only mediate our existence, but are places where these mediations are made explicit – therefore, Verbeek argues, they are the places where people have to start to discuss and criticise the quality of the ways in which these ‘things’ help to shape our daily lives (Verbeek 2008). This thesis attempts to offer a new approach to this criticism through theoretical comparison and transdisciplinary analysis

Wearable Computing for Health and Fitness: Exploring the Relationship between Data and Human Behaviour

Health and fitness wearable technology has recently advanced, making it easier for an individual to monitor their behaviours. Previously self generated data interacts with the user to motivate positive behaviour change, but issues arise when relating this to long term mention of wearable devices. Previous studies within this area are discussed. We also consider a new approach where data is used to support instead of motivate, through monitoring and logging to encourage reflection. Based on issues highlighted, we then make recommendations on the direction in which future work could be most beneficial

Affect and believability in game characters:a review of the use of affective computing in games

Virtual agents are important in many digital environments. Designing a character that highly engages users in terms of interaction is an intricate task constrained by many requirements. One aspect that has gained more attention recently is the effective dimension of the agent. Several studies have addressed the possibility of developing an affect-aware system for a better user experience. Particularly in games, including emotional and social features in NPCs adds depth to the characters, enriches interaction possibilities, and combined with the basic level of competence, creates a more appealing game. Design requirements for emotionally intelligent NPCs differ from general autonomous agents with the main goal being a stronger player-agent relationship as opposed to problem solving and goal assessment. Nevertheless, deploying an affective module into NPCs adds to the complexity of the architecture and constraints. In addition, using such composite NPC in games seems beyond current technology, despite some brave attempts. However, a MARPO-type modular architecture would seem a useful starting point for adding emotions