Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

VeggieHunters Challenge A conceptual design by

Laura Shact & Shuqiao Song

Design ChallengeTo use mobile technology to persuade users to eat 5

vegetables a day. Time investment: 5 hours

VeggieHunters Challenge

Persuasive Purpose To use mobile technology to persuade people to take a picture of

a vegetable at each meal. [Grand goal: Use mobile technology to persuade people to eat 5

vegetables a day.]  Industrial Design

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

VeggieHunters User Group

• College undergraduates at Stanford University• Vegetarians; Or highly motivated participants• Have and use camera phones w/email

capabilities• Eat in a dining hall with vegetable options every

day

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

The VeggieHunters Story

He decides to join in on the fun. The next day he walks to the cafe and looks at the vegetable options. He decides to get some steamed artichoke on his plate because it looks cool.

Before he sits down to eat, he takes picture of the artichoke and sends it to the DailyBooth account.  He usually doesn't eat artichoke, but since it is already on his plate...he decides to take a bite. Not bad!

One day at lunch, Molly uses her camera phone to take a picture of her salad.  Bobby is curious and asks her what that's all about.

Molly explains that she is doing this VeggieHunters challenge  The challenge asks her to take a picture of a vegetable every time she is in the dining hall and email it to the Daily booth account.

Bobby decides to check out the DailyBooth website.  He sees all the pictures of all the vegetables that people have taken. Wow he didn't know that they served ratatouille in the dining hall...that looks tasty.

Bobby gets really into taking foodie pictures of his vegetable eating escapades.  This helps him appreciate and eat the veggie options that he never realized were there!

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Prototype of VeggieHunters

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Features/Functionality

• Each time a participant enters a Stanford cafeteria, he/she takes a photo of a vegetable

• Participant sends photo to dailybooth email account; subject line includes initials and "Y" to indicate participant ate vegetable or "N" to indicate participant did not

• Participant can go to dailybooth website to view all photos taken by participants and to leave comments (optional)

 

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Theoretical Justifications

• Action is simple and focuses on the smallest behavior that matters - having vegetables available

• Creates awareness of vegetables (type, location, preparation)

• Creates association with cycle behavior of eating in cafeteria

• Incorporates lessons from past projects: 1) Social component, 2) Feedback provided

 

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Results of User Testing

• TBD

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Shortcomings of Design

• Participants may not be sufficiently triggered to take photos/send email

• Unclear whether increased awareness and act of taking photos of veggies has implications for consumption

• Intervention strategy for one-week period may not create an ongoing habit in longer term

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Expansion - What else is possible?

• At randomly selected times, a prize will be awarded to participants who have eaten the most amount of vegetables

• Can increase participation through systematic use of comment functionality on dailybooth.com

• Can prompt users to remember habit with a "trigger", such as a funny photo of someone with a vegetable or of interestingly-shaped vegetable

 

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Next Steps in Design Process

• Build dailybooth.com webpage/account for project

• Recruit users for project• Develop project kick-off email and user pre-

survey questions• Send users the survey prior to project kick-off

on Saturday to determine current veggie consumption, motivation for eating vegetables, and whether or not user is a vegetarian