Blueprints:Systematizing Behavior Change Designs-The Case of Social Comparison Theory

To improve people's lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints. A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.</p

Help-Giving Robot Behaviors in Child-Robot Games:Exploring Semantic Free Utterances

We present initial findings from an experiment where we used Semantic Free Utterances vocalizations and sounds without semantic content as an alternative to Natural Language in a child-robot collaborative game. We tested (i) if two types of Semantic Free Utterances could be accurately recognized by the children; (ii) what effect the type of Semantic Free Utterances had as part of help-giving behaviors with in situ child-robot interaction. We discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of Semantic Free Utterances for child-robot interaction

Crowd-designed motivation: combining personality and the Transtheoretical Model

Current approaches to design motivational technology for behavior change focus on either tailoring motivational strategies to individual preferences or on implementing strategies from behavior change theory. Our goal is to combine these two approaches and translate behavior change theory to text messages, tailored to personality. To this end, we conducted an online survey with 481 participants exploring the relationship between behavior change theory (the Transtheoretical Model) and personality in the context of physical activity. Our results show that (1) people’s personalities correlate with their stage of change and (2) people’s personalities and their stages of change correlate to preferences for certain processes of change. We discuss the implications of the results for designing motivational technology

A Simple Nod of the Head: The Effect of Minimal Robot Movements on Children's Perception of a Low-Anthropomorphic Robot

In this note, we present minimal robot movements for robotic technology for children. Two types of minimal gaze movements were designed: social-gaze movements to communicate social engagement and deictic-gaze movements to communicate task-related referential information. In a two (social-gaze movements vs. none) by two (deictic-gaze movements vs. none) video-based study (n=72), we found that social-gaze movements significantly increased children's perception of animacy and likeability of the robot. Deictic-gaze and social-gaze movements significantly increased children's perception of helpfulness. Our findings show the compelling communicative power of social-gaze movements, and to a lesser extent deictic-gaze movements, and have implications for designers who want to achieve animacy, likeability and helpfulness with simple and easily implementable minimal robot movements. Our work contributes to human-robot interaction research and design by providing a first indication of the potential of minimal robot movements to communicate social engagement and helpful referential information to children

A word of advice: how to tailor motivational text messages based on behavior change theory to personality and gender

Developing systems that motivate people to change their behaviors, such as an exercise application for the smartphone, is challenging. One solution is to implement motivational strategies from existing behavior change theory and tailor these strategies to preferences based on personal characteristics, like personality and gender. We operationalized strategies by collecting representative motivational text messages and aligning the messages to ten theory-based behavior change strategies. We conducted an online survey with 350 participants, where the participants rated 50 of our text messages (each aligned to one of the ten strategies) on how motivating they found them. Results show that differences in personality and gender relate to significant differences in the evaluations of nine out of ten strategies. Eight out of ten strategies were perceived as either more or less motivating in relation to scores on the personality traits Openness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness. Four strategies were perceived as more motivating by men than by women. These findings show that personality and gender influence how motivational strategies are perceived. We conclude that our theory-based behavior change strategies can be more motivating by tailoring them to personality and gender of users of behavior change systems

The Sensory Interactive Table: Exploring the Social Space of Eating

Eating is in many ways a social activity. Yet, little is known about the social dimension of eating influencing individual eating habits. Nor do we know much about how to purposefully design for interactions in the social space of eating. This paper presents (1) the journey of exploring the social space of eating by designing an artifact, and (2) the actual artifact designed for the purpose of exploring the interaction dynamics of social eating. The result of this Research through Design journey is the Sensory Interactive Table: an interactive dining table based on explorations of the social space of eating, and a probe to explore the social space of eating further

Sensory interactive table (SIT): Development of a measurement instrument to support healthy eating in a social dining setting

This paper presents the Sensory Interactive Table (SIT): an instrumented, interactive dining table. Through the use of load cells and LEDs that are embedded in the table surface, SIT allows us to study: (1) the eating behaviors of people in a social setting, (2) the social interactions around the eating behaviors of people in a social setting, and (3) the continuous cycle of feedback through LEDs on people’s eating behavior and their response to this feedback in real time, to ultimately create an effective dietary support system. This paper presents the hard-and software specifications of the system, and it shows the potential of the system to capture mass-related dimensions in real time and with high accuracy and spatial resolution

Commensality or Reverie in Eating?: Exploring the Solo Dining Experience

Commensality, the act of eating together, is commonly associated with many benefits. Dining solo, in contrast, is frequently connected to adverse effects on a person. There is a growing interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) and design in how innovations can enhance eating experiences by, for example, facilitating commensality. The steadily growing number of people eating alone and the associated risks beg the question of how HCI and design could contribute to and improve the solo dining experience and whether or not mimicking or facilitating commensality is what solo diners want. This two-phased study reports on the context exploration of the multimodal solitary dining experience. In the first phase, we scoped the literature describing the benefits and drawbacks of solo dining and commensality. For the second phase, a digital food diary was developed and completed by six solo diners to collect further insights and user requirements. Photos and annotations collected as part of the food diary were analyzed using content analysis. The results indicate several advantages of eating alone, including feeling relaxed, perceiving solo dining as a moment of self-pampering, and appreciating the cooking experience. Overall, it seems that solo dining is not merely a lack of commensality, but a unique experience in and of itself, where people seem to strive towards finding reverie in eating

Short and long-term innovations on dietary behavior assessment and coaching: Present efforts and vision of the pride and prejudice consortium

Overweight, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases are major global health concerns. Lifestyle factors, including diet, have been acknowledged to play a key role in the solution of these health risks. However, as shown by numerous studies, and in clinical practice, it is extremely challenging to quantify dietary behaviors as well as influencing them via dietary interventions. As shown by the limited success of ‘one-size-fits-all’ nutritional campaigns catered to an entire population or subpopulation, the need for more personalized coaching approaches is evident. New technology-based innovations provide opportunities to further improve the accuracy of dietary assessment and develop approaches to coach individuals towards healthier dietary behaviors. Pride &amp; Prejudice (P&amp;P) is a unique multi-disciplinary consortium consisting of researchers in life, nutrition, ICT, design, behavioral and social sciences from all four Dutch Universities of Technology. P&amp;P focuses on the development and integration of innovative technological techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, conversational agents, behavior change theory and personalized coaching to improve current practices and establish lasting dietary behavior change.Industrial Design EngineeringMethodology and Organisation of Desig

Short and long-term innovations on dietary behavior assessment and coaching: Present efforts and vision of the pride and prejudice consortium

Overweight, obesity and cardiometabolic diseases are major global health concerns. Lifestyle factors, including diet, have been acknowledged to play a key role in the solution of these health risks. However, as shown by numerous studies, and in clinical practice, it is extremely challenging to quantify dietary behaviors as well as influencing them via dietary interventions. As shown by the limited success of ‘one-size-fits-all’ nutritional campaigns catered to an entire population or subpopulation, the need for more personalized coaching approaches is evident. New technology-based innovations provide opportunities to further improve the accuracy of dietary assessment and develop approaches to coach individuals towards healthier dietary behaviors. Pride & Prejudice (P&P) is a unique multi-disciplinary consortium consisting of researchers in life, nutrition, ICT, design, behavioral and social sciences from all four Dutch Universities of Technology. P&P focuses on the development and integration of innovative technological techniques such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, conversational agents, behavior change theory and personalized coaching to improve current practices and establish lasting dietary behavior change