Fall 2004: 4.208
Designing Persuasive Environments and Technologies

Rapid Design 3: Lasting behavior change and evaluation

Due beginning of class on Thu Oct. 14 

Goal

Ideally, your interface designs need to work for long periods of time and adapt to the user's needs without conflicting with other behavior change devices. The goal of this assignment is to re-propose two project ideas with this in mind, as well as class feedback from the presentations on 10/7. 

Assignment

Plan to spend at least three hours on this exercise. 

Pick one project idea presented by you and one project idea presented by one of your classmates on 10/7.  

Based upon your ideas and class feedback, for each project propose modifications to improve the project idea. Layer an additional behavior change strategy on top of the system that was already proposed. 

For each project, describe how you would redesign it to most effectively motivate and maintain those behavior changes.  Describe, in as much detail as possible, how your changes will:  

• Motivate the desired behavior changes
• Work for at least 2 years for the same user(s) 
• Change the models it uses as needed
• Adapt the interface over time as needed
• Work for adults and children (if applicable) 
• Have high perceived value and is something someone or some organization would actually pay for because it addresses a serious problem

Do not assume the existence of any "leaps of faith" technology. In fact, only assume technology that you think the person who proposed the idea could implement.  

Finally, for each idea, make a detailed proposal describing how the effectiveness of the technology for behavior change motivation could be experimentally evaluated. 

In less than two typed pages for each idea, describe the idea and back it up by listing specific concepts from the readings that led you to propose particular components or design choices. Try to be broad, applying many ideas and integrating them into one coherent user experience. 

Give your motivational systems names to remember them by. 

Hand-in

Hand in a copy of any sketches you made and your write up. You should be prepared to describe and support your ideas in class, teaching us how they would work and why.  

Last modified: Wednesday, September 08, 2004