Deploying persuasive technology-based model in the prevention and control of malaria in Nigeria to reduce incidence of deaths

Specifically among pregnant women and young children under the age of five, malaria is one of the major causes of illnesses and fatalities in Nigeria, and in Africa in general. According to recent research, malaria-related deaths (MRDs) have risen even though the government has implemented numerous intervention strategies to combat this deadly among Nigerians. This is a result of people not using such intervention methods to protect themselves. Further research into why people don’t comply with intervention systems effectively revealed that the interventions are passive, and sometimes complicated to adopt. Consequently, we established three quantifiable research outcomes that will allow us to assess if persuasive technology is appropriate for eradicating malaria-related deaths. We utilize participatory system design (PSD) and User-Centered methods to collect data from research. The participants provided answers to well-designed questionnaires that were used to gather information to analyze the impact of persuasive technology on the prevention and control of malaria-related deaths. The modeling of the intervention system uses the information gathered from the research survey. The Malaria Prevention and Control Support System (MPCSS), an intervention system, was developed and deployed as part of the research in three phases, and its effectiveness was assessed by an evaluation study. The study revealed that applying the suggested persuading technology-based methodology boosted ownership of mosquito nets, involvement in malaria prevention and control activities, and understanding of the risk of malaria-related mortality

Modeling Gender Differences in Healthy Eating Determinants for Persuasive Intervention Design

Abstract. The onset of many health conditions, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, can be prevented or at least delayed by adequate changes in diet. Various determinants of healthy eating – such as Weight Concern, Nutrition Knowledge, Concern for Disease, Social Influence, and Food Choice Motive – have been manipulated by persuasive technologies to motivate healthy eating behavior. However, the relative importance and the dynamic of interaction between the determinants of healthy behavior for males and females are still unknown. Understanding how the determinants vary across user groups is important, as it will help persuasive technology designers personalize their interventions to the target demographics, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the intervention. To investigate for possible variations in healthy eating determinants, we developed separate models of healthy eating determinants for males and females. The models, which are based on a quantitative study of 228 (124 males and 104 females) participants, reveal some similarities and differences in the interactions between the determinants of healthy eating behavior. Based on the result from our models, we highlight some genderinclusive and gender-specific approaches to persuasive intervention design.

DESIGN FOR BEHAVIOUR CHANGE: A MODEL-DRIVEN APPROACH FOR TAILORING PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGIES

People generally want to engage in a healthy lifestyle, to live in harmony with the environment, to contribute to social causes, and to avoid behaviours that are harmful for themselves and others. However, people often find it difficult to motivate themselves to engage in these beneficial behaviours. Even adopting a healthy lifestyle, such as healthy eating, physical activity, or smoking cessation, is hard despite being aware of the benefits. The increasing adoption and integration of technologies into our daily lives present unique opportunities to assist individuals to adopt healthy behaviours using technology. As a result, research on how to use technology to motivate health behaviour change has attracted the attention of both researchers and health practitioners. Technology designed for the purpose of bringing about desirable behaviour and attitude changes is referred to as Persuasive Technology (PT). Over the past decade, several PTs have been developed to motivate healthy behaviour, including helping people with addictive behaviour such as substance abuse, assisting individuals to achieve personal wellness, helping people manage diseases, and engaging people in preventive behaviours. Most of these PTs take a one-size-fits-all design approach. However, people differ in their motivation and beliefs about health and what constitutes a healthy life. A technology that motivates one type of person to change her behaviour may actually deter behaviour change for another type of person. As a result, existing PTs that are based on the one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective for promoting healthy behaviour change for most people. Because of the motivational pull that games offer, many PTs deliver their intervention in the form of games. This type of game-based PTs are referred to as persuasive games. Considering the increasing interest in delivering PT as a game, this dissertation uses persuasive games as a case study to illustrate the danger of applying the one-size-fits-all approach, the value and importance of tailoring PT, and to propose an approach for tailoring PTs to increase their efficacy. To address the problem that most existing PTs employ the one-size-fits-all design approach, I developed the Model-driven Persuasive Technology (MPT) design approach for tailoring PTs to various user types. The MPT is based on studying and modelling user’s behaviour with respect to their motivations. I developed the MPT approach in two preliminary studies (N = 221, N = 554) that model the determinants of healthy eating for people from different cultures, of different ages, and of both genders. I then applied the MPT approach in two large-scale studies to develop models for tailoring persuasive games to various gamer types. In the first study (N = 642), I examine eating behaviours and associated determinants, using the Health Belief Model. Using data from the study, I modelled the determinants of healthy eating behaviour for various gamer types. In the second study (N = 1108), I examined the persuasiveness of PT design strategies and developed models for tailoring the strategies to various gamer types. Behavioural determinants and PT design strategies are the two fundamental building blocks that drive PT interventions. The models revealed that some strategies were more effective for particular gamer types, thus, providing guidelines for tailoring persuasive games to various gamer types. To show the feasibility of the MPT design approach, I applied the model to design and develop two versions of a Model-driven Persuasive Game (MPG) targeting two distinct gamer types. To demonstrate the importance of tailoring persuasive games using the MPG approach, I conducted a large-scale evaluation (N = 802) of the two versions of the game and compared the efficacy of the tailored, contra-tailored, and the one-size-fits-all persuasive games condition with respect to their ability to promote positive changes in attitude, self-efficacy, and intention. To also demonstrate that the tailored MPG games inspire better play experience than the one-size-fits-all and the contra-tailored persuasive games, I measure the gamers’ perceived enjoyment and competence under the different game conditions. The results of the evaluation showed that while PTs can be effective for promoting healthy behaviour in terms of attitude, self-efficacy, and intention, the effectiveness of persuasion depends on using the right choice of persuasive strategy for each gamer type. The results showed that one size does not fit all and answered my overarching research question of whether there is a value in tailoring PT to an individual or group. The answer is that persuasive health interventions are more effective if they are tailored to the user types under consideration and that not tailoring PTs could be detrimental to behaviour change

Evaluating the Persuasiveness of Mobile Health: The Intersection of Persuasive System Design and Data Science

Persuasive technology is an umbrella term that encompasses any software (e.g., mobile app) or hardware (e.g., smartwatch) designed to influence users to perform a preferable behavior once or on a long-term basis. Considering the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices across all socioeconomic groups, user behavior modification thrives under the personalized care that persuasive technology can offer. This research examines the roles psychological characteristics play in interpreted mHealth screen perceived persuasiveness. A review of the literature revealed a gap regarding how developers of digital health technologies are often tasked with developing tools designed to engage patients, yet little emphasis has been placed on understanding what psychological characteristics motivate and demotivate their users to engage with digital health technologies. Developers must move past using a cookie-cutter, one size fits all solution, and seek to develop digital health technologies designed to traverse the terrain that navigates between the fluid nature of goals and user preferences. This terrain is often determined by user’s psychological characteristics and demographic (control) variables. An experiment was designed to evaluate how psychological characteristics (self-efficacy, xiv health consciousness, health motivation, and the Big Five personality traits) impact the perceived persuasiveness of digital health technologies utilizing the Persuasive System Design (PSD) framework. This study used multiple linear regressions and Contrast, a publicly available Python implementation of the contrast pattern mining algorithm Search and Testing for Understandable Consistent Contrasts (STUCCO), to study the multifaceted needs of the users of digital health technologies based on psychological characteristics. The results of this experiment show psychological characteristics (selfefficacy, health consciousness, health motivation, and extraversion) enhancing the perceived persuasiveness of digital health technologies. The findings of the study revealed that screens utilizing techniques for the primary task support have high perceived persuasiveness scores. System credibility techniques were found to be a contributor to perceived persuasiveness and should be used in the development of persuasive technologies. The results of this study show practitioners should abstain from using social support techniques. Persuasive techniques from the social support category were found to have very low perceived persuasive scores which indicate a lower ability to persuade mHealth app users to utilize the tool. The findings strongly suggest the distribution of perceived persuasiveness shifts from negatively skewed to positively skewed as participants get older. Additionally, this shift occurs earlier in females (i.e., in the 40-59 age group) compared to males who do not shift until the oldest age group (i.e., in the 60 and older age group). The results imply that an individual user’s psychological characteristics affect interpreted mHealth screen perceived persuasiveness, and that combinations of persuasive principles and psychological characteristics lead to greater perceived persuasiveness

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

Dynamic Personalization of Gameful Interactive Systems

Gameful design, the process of creating a system with affordances for gameful experiences, can be used to increase user engagement and enjoyment of digital interactive systems. It can also be used to create applications for behaviour change in areas such as health, wellness, education, customer loyalty, and employee management. However, existing research suggests that the qualities of users, such as their personality traits, preferences, or identification with a task, can influence gamification outcomes. It is important to understand how to personalize gameful systems, given how user qualities shape the gameful experience. Current evidence suggests that personalized gameful systems can lead to increased user engagement and be more effective in helping users achieve their goals than generic ones. However, to create these kinds of systems, designers need a specific method to guide them in personalizing the gameful experience to their target audience. To address this need, this thesis proposes a novel method for personalized gameful design divided into three steps: (1) classification of user preferences, (2) classification and selection of gameful design elements, and (3) heuristic evaluation of the design. Regarding the classification of user preferences, this thesis evaluates and validates the Hexad Gamification User Types Scale, which scores a person in six user types: philanthropist, socialiser, free spirit, achiever, player, and disruptor. Results show that the scale’s structural validity is acceptable for gamification studies through reliability analysis and factor analysis. For classification and selection of gameful design elements, this thesis presents a conceptual framework based on participants’ self-reported preferences, which classifies elements in eight groups organized into three categories: individual motivations (immersion and progression), external motivations (risk/reward, customization, and incentives), and social motivations (socialization, altruism, and assistance). And to evaluate the design of gameful applications, this thesis introduces a set of 28 gameful design heuristics, which are based on motivational theories and gameful design methods and enable user experience professionals to conduct a heuristic evaluation of a gameful application. Furthermore, this thesis describes the design, implementation, and pilot evaluation of a software platform for the study of personalized gameful design. It integrates nine gameful design elements built around a main instrumental task, enabling researchers to observe and study the gameful experience of participants. The platform is flexible so the instrumental task can be changed, game elements can be added or removed, and the level and type of personalization or customization can be controlled. This allows researchers to generate different experimental conditions to study a broad range of research questions. Our personalized gameful design method provides practical tools and clear guidelines to help designers effectively build personalized gameful systems