Designing Culture-Tailored Persuasive Technology to Promote Physical Activity

Physical inactivity has been recognized as one of the leading risk factors that account for cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, stroke, hypertension, etc., with the World Health Organization labeling it as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Research has shown that persuasive technology (PT) can be leveraged as a motivational/supportive tool in tackling the physical-inactivity problem. In particular, research shows that persuasive health applications (PHAs) are more likely to be effective if they are theory-driven and tailored to the target audience. Yet, most existing PHAs on the market are neither theory-driven nor tailored to the target audience. Rather, their designers often employ a one-size-fits-all approach. This makes it difficult to know what design decisions are effective or ineffective among a given target audience. To bridge this gap, I proposed a framework, called the “EMVE-DeCK Framework,” grounded in Bandura’s Triad of Reciprocal Determinism, for designing, implementing and evaluating tailored PT interventions. Basically, the EMVE-DeCK Framework employs “Theory” and “Technology” to explain and change “Behavior.” Moreover, research shows that culture can be leveraged as a personalization mechanism for tailoring PHAs to the target users to make them more effective. However, there is limited cross-cultural research—grounded in theory and empirical evidence—on the effectiveness of culture-based tailoring, especially comparative studies involving understudied populations in the PT research landscape. Hence, using the Hofstede’s cultural framework (individualism vs. collectivism), Social Cognitive Theory, Technology Acceptance Model and the EMVE-DeCK Framework, I conducted a number of comparative studies to understand the culture-specific determinants of physical-activity behavior and the acceptance of a proposed PHA. I used the findings to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of two versions of a fitness app called BEN’FIT—personal version (PV) and social version (SV)—aimed to motivate bodyweight exercise at home. In this dissertation, using the EMVE-DeCK Framework and Canada/United States (individualist culture) and Nigeria (collectivist culture) as a case study, I describe: (1) the cross-cultural user studies and empirical findings that informed the PT intervention; (2) the design and implementation of the culture-tailored PHA; and (3) the evaluation of the overall and culture-tailoring effectiveness of the PHA in a field setting. Finally, based on empirical evidence, I present a set of validated PT design guidelines in the field for designing and tailoring PHAs to users in the individualist and collectivist cultures. This dissertation makes three major contributions to PT research in the Human-Computer-Interaction domain. Firstly, it demonstrates how theory and culture can be employed in the design and development of PT interventions to motivate behavior change. Secondly, it reveals and validates in the field how the individualist and collectivist cultures fundamentally differ in their motivational mechanism of behavior change. Thirdly, it provides an in-the-field validated PT design guidelines for developing tailored PHAs for the two main types of culture. In the physical-activity domain, the dissertation is the first to conduct a theory-driven, in-the-field cross-cultural PT research that focuses on an understudied population from Africa (Nigeria) and compare its findings with those of a widely studied population from North America (Canada/United States)

Designing Culture-Tailored Persuasive Technology to Promote Physical Activity

Physical inactivity has been recognized as one of the leading risk factors that account for cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, stroke, hypertension, etc., with the World Health Organization labeling it as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Research has shown that persuasive technology (PT) can be leveraged as a motivational/supportive tool in tackling the physical-inactivity problem. In particular, research shows that persuasive health applications (PHAs) are more likely to be effective if they are theorydriven and tailored to the target audience. Yet, most existing PHAs on the market are neither theory-driven nor tailored to the target audience. Rather, their designers often employ a one-size- fits-all approach. This makes it difficult to know what design decisions are effective or ineffective among a given target audience. To bridge this gap, I proposed a framework, called the "EMVE-DeCK Framework," grounded in Bandura's Triad of Reciprocal Determinism, for designing, implementing and evaluating tailored PT interventions. Basically, the EMVE-DeCK Framework employs "Theory" and "Technology" to explain and change "Behavior." Moreover, research shows that culture can be leveraged as a personalization mechanism for tailoring PHAs to the target users to make them more effective. However, there is limited cross-cultural research|grounded in theory and empirical evidence|on the effectiveness of culture-based tailoring, especially comparative studies involving understudied populations in the PT research landscape. Hence, using the Hofstede's cultural framework (individualism vs. collectivism), Social Cognitive Theory, Technology Acceptance Model and the EMVE-DeCK Framework, I conducted a number of comparative studies to understand the culture-speci c determinants of physical-activity behavior and the acceptance of a proposed PHA. I used the ndings to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of two versions of a tness app called BEN'FIT - personal version (PV) and social version (SV) - aimed to motivate bodyweight exercise at home. In this dissertation, using the EMVE-DeCK Framework and Canada/United States (individualist culture) and Nigeria (collectivist culture) as a case study, I describe: (1) the cross-cultural user studies and empirical f indings that informed the PT intervention; (2) the design and implementation of the culture-tailored PHA; (3) the evaluation of the overall and culture-tailoring e ectiveness of the PHA in a eld setting. Finally, based on empirical evidence, I present a set of validated PT design guidelines in the eld for designing and tailoring PHAs to users in the individualist and collectivist cultures. This dissertation makes three major contributions to PT research in the Human-Computer-Interaction domain. Firstly, it demonstrates how theory and culture can be employed in the design and development of PT interventions to motivate behavior change. Secondly, it reveals and validates in the eld how the individualist and collectivist cultures fundamentally differ in their motivational mechanism of behavior change. Thirdly, it provides an in-the- field validates PT design guidelines for developing tailored PHAs for the two main types of culture. In the physical-activity domain, the dissertation is the rst to conduct a theory-driven, in-the-fi eld cross-cultural PT research that focuses on an understudied population from Africa (Nigeria) and compare its ndings with those of a widely studied population from North America (Canada/United States)

Gender Difference in the Credibility Perception of Mobile Websites: A Mixed Method Approach

SIGCHI ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction SIGWEB ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and WebTo persuade people to buy a product or service online, they must be visually convinced and attracted to use the sales website. Thus, there is need to understand how different user groups perceive various designs of websites for better adaptation. A lot of research has shown that users' judgment of the credibility of a website is critical to its success. However, in the mobile domain, little has been done empirically to 1) investigate users' credibility perception of a website; and 2) how it changes as the user interface (UI) design is systematically altered. This paper bridges this gap by carrying out sentiment and statistical analyses of users' perceptions of four systematically modified mobile websites among 285 subjects from North America, Africa and Asia. The results show that mobile website design affects the perception of its credibility, with 1) females being more critical and sensitive to UI changes than males; and 2) the grid-layout website design preferred to the list-layout website design by both genders. The study contributes to knowledge in three ways. First, it provides a concise model for understanding users' UI perceptions, expectations and gender differences. Second, it presents important findings that will enable a gender-based mobile website adaptation. Third, it provides a set of empirically backed guidelines for mobile web design

Does Mouse Click Frequency Predict Students' Flow Experience?

Designing educational systems able to lead students into flow experience is a contemporary challenge, especially given the positive relationship between flow experience and learning. However, an important challenge within the field of learning analytics is evaluating the students' flow experience during the use of educational systems. In general, such evaluation is conducted using invasive methods (e.g., electroencephalogram, and eye trackers) and cannot be massively applied. To face this challenge, following the trend of utilizing behavioral data produced by users to identify their experience when using different types of systems, in our study, we evaluated the applicability of employing one single type of behavior data (i.e., mouse click frequency) as an exclusive metric to model and to predict students' flow experience. By conducting two data-driven studies (N1 = 25 | N2 = 101), we identified that the mouse click frequency on its own is not able to predict the flow experience. Our study contributes to the field of learning analytics confirming that it is not possible to predict students' flow experience only with mouse click frequency and paving the way for new studies that use different behavior data to predict students' flow experience

Front Public Health

The African gaming industry is beginning to flourish as a result of a rise in the availability of inexpensive phones and the number of mobile phone subscribers. It has enabled the development and implementation of mobile serious games to promote healthy behavior change in rural communities. This paper examines the use of mobile serious games in healthcare education, with a particular focus on those designed to increase health literacy in rural Africa. Identifying and addressing the design challenges and issues faced by people living in rural African communities through the use of persuasive mobile games can promote behavior change among these underserved communities. We used PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar and manual search to identify relevant studies published from 2011 to July 2021. The literature review highlights how the identified challenges affect the implementation of persuasive strategies, suggests design solutions for overcoming them, and discusses how persuasive games can be tailored to suit the target rural African populations. Some of the identified challenges are technical in nature (e.g., access to electricity and internet connectivity), while others are not (e.g., language diversity and low literacy). As the number of serious games for healthcare education and awareness continues to increase, it is essential for the successful implementation of inclusive mobile health technologies in rural Africa to identify and address the specific challenges faced by underserved populations such as rural African communities

Designing Culture-Tailored Persuasive Technology to Promote Physical Activity

Physical inactivity has been recognized as one of the leading risk factors that account for cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, stroke, hypertension, etc., with the World Health Organization labeling it as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Research has shown that persuasive technology (PT) can be leveraged as a motivational/supportive tool in tackling the physical-inactivity problem. In particular, research shows that persuasive health applications (PHAs) are more likely to be effective if they are theorydriven and tailored to the target audience. Yet, most existing PHAs on the market are neither theory-driven nor tailored to the target audience. Rather, their designers often employ a one-size- fits-all approach. This makes it difficult to know what design decisions are effective or ineffective among a given target audience. To bridge this gap, I proposed a framework, called the "EMVE-DeCK Framework," grounded in Bandura's Triad of Reciprocal Determinism, for designing, implementing and evaluating tailored PT interventions. Basically, the EMVE-DeCK Framework employs "Theory" and "Technology" to explain and change "Behavior." Moreover, research shows that culture can be leveraged as a personalization mechanism for tailoring PHAs to the target users to make them more effective. However, there is limited cross-cultural research|grounded in theory and empirical evidence|on the effectiveness of culture-based tailoring, especially comparative studies involving understudied populations in the PT research landscape. Hence, using the Hofstede's cultural framework (individualism vs. collectivism), Social Cognitive Theory, Technology Acceptance Model and the EMVE-DeCK Framework, I conducted a number of comparative studies to understand the culture-speci c determinants of physical-activity behavior and the acceptance of a proposed PHA. I used the ndings to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of two versions of a tness app called BEN'FIT - personal version (PV) and social version (SV) - aimed to motivate bodyweight exercise at home. In this dissertation, using the EMVE-DeCK Framework and Canada/United States (individualist culture) and Nigeria (collectivist culture) as a case study, I describe: (1) the cross-cultural user studies and empirical f indings that informed the PT intervention; (2) the design and implementation of the culture-tailored PHA; (3) the evaluation of the overall and culture-tailoring e ectiveness of the PHA in a eld setting. Finally, based on empirical evidence, I present a set of validated PT design guidelines in the eld for designing and tailoring PHAs to users in the individualist and collectivist cultures. This dissertation makes three major contributions to PT research in the Human-Computer-Interaction domain. Firstly, it demonstrates how theory and culture can be employed in the design and development of PT interventions to motivate behavior change. Secondly, it reveals and validates in the eld how the individualist and collectivist cultures fundamentally differ in their motivational mechanism of behavior change. Thirdly, it provides an in-the- field validates PT design guidelines for developing tailored PHAs for the two main types of culture. In the physical-activity domain, the dissertation is the rst to conduct a theory-driven, in-the-fi eld cross-cultural PT research that focuses on an understudied population from Africa (Nigeria) and compare its ndings with those of a widely studied population from North America (Canada/United States)

The Relationship between Perceived Health Message Motivation and Social Cognitive Beliefs in Persuasive Health Communication

People respond to different types of health messages in persuasive health communication aimed at motivating behavior change. Hence, in human factors design, there is a need to tailor health applications to different user groups rather than change the human characteristics and conditions. However, in the domain of fitness app design, there is limited research on the relationship between users’ perceived motivation of health messages and their social–cognitive beliefs about exercise, and how this relationship is moderated by gender. Knowledge of the gender difference will help in tailoring fitness apps to the two main gender types. Hence, I conducted an empirical study to investigate the types of health messages that are most likely to motivate users and how these messages are related to outcome expectation, self-efficacy, and self-regulation beliefs in the context of exercise modeling. The results of the data analysis show that users are more motivated by illness- and death-related messages compared with obesity-, social stigma-, and financial cost-related messages. Moreover, illness- and death-related messages have a significant relationship with users’ social–cognitive beliefs about bodyweight exercise. These findings indicate that, in the fitness domain, illness- and death-related messages may be employed as a persuasive technique to motivate regular exercise

ComTech: Towards a unified taxonomy of persuasive techniques for persuasive technology design

Few development taxonomies of persuasive techniques that unify the key disciplines involved in the design of persuasive technology have been proposed. With most prior taxonomies existing in silos, it is difficult to see how different disciplines fit together to realize a persuasive system. The objective of this conceptual paper is to propose a unified taxonomy of persuasive techniques for persuasive technology design, called “ComTech,” that encompasses communication design, user experience design, and persuasive design by extending, refining, breaking down, and integrating relevant existing standalone taxonomies and frameworks. “Com” stands for the “communication design” aspect of persuasive technology, subdivided into two broad types: framing- and appeal-based. From the existing literature, we teased out six categories of communication design: non-equivalenT, Equivalence- and Modality-based framing, and Pathos-, Logos-, and Ethos-based appeal (TEMPLE). Moreover, “Tech” stands for the “technology design” aspect of persuasive technology, subdivided into two major components: user experience and persuasive design. Building on Walter's hierarchical model of user needs, we teased out seven dimensions of user experience design from the literature: Hedonic Quality, Usability, Efficacy, Dependability, Credibility, Utility, and Protectability (HUED CUP). Similarly, extending Oinas-Kukkonen and Harjumaa's Persuasive System Design taxonomy, we teased out six categories of persuasive strategies—Collaboration, Adaptation, Learning, Facilitation, Incentive, and Nudging (CALFIN)—grounded in sociopsychological theories. The six categories can be regarded as six pillars of persuasive technology, which, combined with communication and user experience design, can be employed to stimulate, motivate, and facilitate behavior change. The main contribution of the conceptual paper is theoretical in nature with practical applications in the persuasive technology domain. The ComTech taxonomy can help researchers and designers to visualize how the various persuasive techniques spanning communication design, user experience design, and persuasive design fit together to foster behavior change. Moreover, it can help behavior change stakeholders find, make sense of, and use the right persuasive techniques and strategies efficiently and effectively in the design, implementation, and evaluation of technological interventions aimed at changing behaviors in different domains such as health, education, and energy conservation