Personalizing motivational strategies

Design for behaviour change (BC) has the potential to motivate older adults to increase their physical activity and enjoy the health benefits hereof. Despite this potential, there is a lack of knowledge about how to profile users, to most effectively personalize strategies, which is detrimental to the overall effectiveness of these BC solutions. Thus we conducted a random control trial in which the effects of two BC strategies, implemented in two otherwise similar mobile applications, are compared. From the statistical analysis of the measured step data and the collected survey data, we were able to create motivation profiles for BC by triangulating an individual’s contextual, behavioural and psychological factors. Here we share an overview of our approach. In this way we aim to inform designers doing important work in the field of BC toward increased physical activity.