Designing a persuasive physical activity application for older workers: understanding end-user perceptions

Abstract

Among the factors known to encourage healthy ageing is routine physical activity, a behaviour that is not common among the older age group. A Persuasive System Design (PSD) model offers guidelines for designing and evaluating systems aimed at reinforcing, changing or shaping underlying human behaviour and attitudes. The objective of this study was to investigate the perceptions of older workers towards persuasive principles of PSD that was integrated into an application specifically designed to encourage physical activity. Ten older workers aged 50 to 64 years with different physical activity levels participated in this study. Using a think-aloud technique, the participants interacted with a physical activity application whilst verbally expressing their perceptions towards the persuasive elements. The results indicated that the older worker participants had positive views towards persuasive design principles that fell under the categories of primary task, dialogue support and credibility support. However, the persuasive principle of the social support category received contradictory views. Further, it was discovered that the personalization of persuasive principles, the credibility of tailored contents and the establishment of a sense of similarity are imperative in the designing of effective persuasive physical activity applications targeting older workers.

Persuasive technologies design for mental and behavioral health platforms: A scoping literature review

“…Fig 5 shows the utilization frequency of the strategies from the PSD model from Table 5 . On average, 6.3 persuasive features were used in the publications utilizing the PSD model listed in Table 5 , with 14 being the highest number of utilizations within 1 application [ 32 ], and 3 being the lowest [ 33 ].…”

“…Furthermore, participant age details fluctuated among studies: while some omitted age specifics, others employed age brackets. For context, average participant ages were as follows: 31.6 years in Fenicio and Calvary’s study [ 48 ], 55.5 years in that by Mohadis and colleagues [ 32 ], 45.5 years in Renfrew and colleagues’ study [ 44 ], and 29.84 years in the work of Jaffar and colleagues [ 33 ]. The evaluation of each study hinged on 2 primary criteria: the outcome—categorized as mixed, positive, or negative—and the inherent risk of bias.…”

The influence of health information attention and app usage frequency of older adults on persuasive strategies in mHealth education apps

“…For example, self-monitoring has long been proven to be the basis for many health interventions. 33 Mohadis et al 34 revealed that similarity is essential for designing fitness apps for older adults. Persuasive strategies are associated with maintenance of use.…”

Development of the mHealth App Trustworthiness checklist

“…38 Overall, 15 peer-reviewed Englishlanguage studies published between 2008-2018 were included in this review. [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Based on the abovedescribed inclusion criteria, each of the 15 studies provided details about the features of physical activity apps that enhanced end-users' experience. In Table 1, we show the condensed themes designed for the focus group discussions.…”

“…Ancker, 2015 39 Giuinti, 2018 40 Guo, 2017 41 Hebden, 2012 42 Howe, 2016 43 Lau, 2018 44 Lee, 2017 45 Lobelo, 2016 46 Mohadis, 2016 47 Parpinel, 2017 48 Puszkiewicz, 2016 49 Robertson, 2017 50 Short, 2018 51 Wen, 2017 52 West, 2012 53 Positive feedback mechanisms X X X Real-time feedback on progress X X X X X Facilitate communication between healthcare professionals X X X X…”