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

Squash’dA conceptual design by

Reed Matheny and Keith McDaniel

Design ChallengeTo strengthen the habit of eating

vegetables among university students

Time Limit: 5 hours

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

Squash’d

Persuasive Purpose To strengthen the habit of eating vegetables among university

students through competition.

Industrial Design

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

User Description

• Attends and lives on a University campus.

• Eats the majority of their meals in a dining hall.

• Is motivated to eat vegetables, but has not made it a regular habit.

• Each of the users know the other users, they have established social connections

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

The Story of Squash’d and Kara

She receives an email on her smartphone that night asking her about her vegetable consumption. Kara answers the two simple questions and is ready to send the form off in minutes.

The email has a link to the leaderboard – Kara’s friend Becca is the current leader in her group because she’s had 4 vegetarian meals and 12 different vegetables in the last two days! This motivates Kara to keep up with her goals.

Kara is a Stanford undergraduate trying to change her eating habits for the better. She wants to improve her fitness and lessen her environmental impact by eating more vegetables so she signs up for a new service called Squash’d that two of her friends already use.

She receives an HTML email outlining the program: every night a simple email form will be sent to her smartphone asking her for the number of vegetarian meals she ate that day, as well as the number of different vegetables she ate throughout the day.

Kara starts off the next day (her first in the program) feeling confident. She seeks out vegetarian meals at her dining hall for breakfast and lunch, eating 7 different kinds of vegetables in the process. Kara is surprised at how easily she can find all of these vegetables at her dining hall now that she’s actively looking for them.

After 4 days with Squash’d Kara is the leader in her friend group, boosting her confidence and strengthening the long-neglected habit of actively seeking vegetables for every meal. She’s on her way to a stronger habit, a healthier diet and a better planet.

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

Prototype of Squash’d email

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

Features/Functionality

• Tracks the # of meals that are vegetarian, and the number of vegetables in each meal.• A customized HTML email is sent out to participants,

allowing them to enter their stats in an easy way.• The system adds up their score.

• Triggers the choice to eat vegetables• The daily email serves as a trigger for the behavior

• Motivates through competition, using the tracking information and a scoring system.• Each vegetarian meal is 2 points• Each vegetable that you eat in a meal is 1 point

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

Theoretical Justifications

• No information• Emphasis on information absorption is taxing and very

often not effective• Competition is key

• Motivation by peers is a very effective tool• Peers can act as an additional trigger, and are often more

well timed.• Personalized triggers are more effective

• A generalized trigger can easily be ignored, but a personal trigger is more effective

• Emphasis on increasing the behavior• Participants are already eating vegetables, and emphasizing

a purple span behavior will be most effective.• Vegetarian is easier

• Putting the emphasis on vegetarianism is easier for participants to track.

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

Plan for User Study

• Duration: 10 days• Participants: 10 students from the Chi Theta Chi

Co-op• Protocol:

• Gather information on participants’ current vegetable habits

• Explain the details of the intervention, including the scoring system and leader board

• Send each participant the tracking email at 9pm daily• Compile scores and update the leader board by

12pm the following day

•Conclusion:• Debrief participants on how/if their habits have

changed.

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

Shortcomings of Design

• Vegetarian meals are not explicitly concentrated on vegetables, but rather anti-meat.

• Trigger is not timed optimally• This is only designed to be used fully by smart

phone users

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

Expansion - What else is possible?

• Other form factors or ID possibilitieso Webo Mobile

• Other features and interactionso Geo-based meal suggestionso Additional tracking metrics

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

Next Steps in Design Process

• Add additional scoring criteria, expanding possibilities to eat vegetables and score points

• Add additional interaction methods: SMS, web, mobile, etc.

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

Summary

• Fostering competition among university students will provide both motivation and trigger.

• Tracking and scoring is easy, and done through a single HTML-enabled email each day.

• The intervention aims to create a purple span behavior, increasing what participants are already done some of the time.