Designing for obsolescence: How to support the formation of healthy habits with technology

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• Kathy Stawarz, University of Bristol
• Wednesday 01 November 2017, 11:00-12:00
• Computer Science, The Sloman Lounge (UG).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Rowanne Fleck.

Have you ever used a smartphone app to track what you eat, count steps or start a new habit? Hundreds of apps that promise to make us healthier are a few taps away. They let us set goals and track our behaviour, and send us reminders to make sure we stay engaged, with the hope that all this will lead to a long-term change. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Quite often, that regular engagement with the app may be what’s stopping us from developing new habits. In this talk, I will describe my research that investigated how we could help people remember medications by moving away from reminders and instead taking advantage of contextual cues. I will highlight the limitations of existing adherence and habit formation apps that focus on continued engagement and will argue that in the context of behaviour change, we should aim for obsolescence and design technologies that are supposed to be abandoned once the new habit is formed.

This talk is part of the Human Computer Interaction seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Computer Science Departmental Series
• Computer Science Distinguished Seminars
• Computer Science, The Sloman Lounge (UG)
• Human Computer Interaction seminars
• computer sience

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