Implementing a New Daily Habit:

A conceptual design byBrian Pesin and Dana Sittler

http://habits.stanford.edu

Design Challenge:To encourage people to incorporate eating vegetables, an important and healthy flex behavior, into their daily routines.Time limit (intervention period): May 22-May 29 (1 week)

Daily Vegetable Consumption Challenge

Persuasive Purpose:

To convince five college students to incorporate and strengthen a vegetable-eating habit, a healthy flex behavior, into their daily routines.

Industrial Design:

+ Eat veggies!

+

User Description

College students who have… Established mealtimes Food prepared for them, with vegetable options A group of people with which to dine For the purpose of this study, the ladies of

Delta Delta Delta

Storyboard: Victoria Eats Veggies

1. Victoria receives a text alert 10 min prior

to mealtime reminding her to eat veggies at dinner.

2. Victoria proceeds to the kitchen and gets in line to get food for her meal.

3. Victoria sees a sign next to the daily vegetable

description with her initials that again reminds her to take veggies and reply.

V.V.Eat

veggies and text!

4. Victoria eats the veggies on her plate, and responds to the

reminder text to track her veggie eating.

5. Victoria receives a summary email mid-

week tracking her and her friends’ veggie eating

progress.

6. The summary email and the initials on the veggie

reminder sign inspire Victoria to verbally remind her sorority sisters to eat

veggies.

VeggieAlert Prototype(s)

From: 41411Eat yr veggies during dinner- pickles don’t count! Reply ‘veggies YES’ to track your progress. Beware of ICE.

Features/Functionality

Reminds person to eat vegetables daily

Two triggers Timed text message hot trigger

Just a few clicks to reply

Personalized reminder at the scene

Holds people accountable both for themselves and for their friends

“Fun punishment” for those who fail to eat veggies

Theoretical Justifications

Increases self-efficacy by encouraging easy healthy behavior Text response and e-mail summary allows user to

track results, providing intrinsic benefits Increases user involvement Act as hot triggers

Very easy to reply to text to track results – hot trigger Sign by vegetables is another physical trigger Immediate calls to action

Users are accountable For themselves as well as for their friends

Shortcomings to Design

Some users may find the format easy to ignore

Design loses efficacy if user lacks a phone/text messaging capabilities

Users may acknowledge the triggers and may take vegetables without tracking results

Hard to force external accountability

Hard to enforce vegetable consumption outside of the house

Expansion – What Else is Possible?

Link vegetable consumption replies to Twitter

Logo could encourage residents who aren’t directly involved with the project to consume vegetables

Recommendations of dishes with “obscured” vegetables for those who resist veggie consumption

Expansion to other self-ops and co-ops on campus

Next Steps

Recruit participants Gather mobile and e-mail information

Prepare mass text-messaging list

Prepare personalized triggers

Create automated text message and summary e-mail

Begin Habit Creation and Data Collection

Get user feedback