Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation

Katarzyna Stawarz; Anna L. Cox; Ann Blandford

doi:10.1145/2702123.2702230

Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation

Katarzyna Stawarz, Anna L. Cox, Ann Blandford

Department of Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

182 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Habit formation is an important part of behavior change interventions: To ensure an intervention has long-term effects, the new behavior has to turn into a habit and become automatic. Smartphone apps could help with this process by supporting habit formation. To better understand how, we conducted a 4-week study exploring the influence of different types of cues and positive reinforcement on habit formation and reviewed the functionality of 115 habit formation apps. We discovered that relying on reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while the use of event-based cues led to increased automaticity; positive reinforcement was ineffective. The functionality review revealed that existing apps focus on self-tracking and reminders, and do not support event-based cues. We argue that apps, and technology-based interventions in general, have the potential to provide real habit support, and present design guidelines for interventions that could support habit formation through contextual cues and implementation intentions.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	2653-2662
Number of pages	10
Volume	2015-April
ISBN (Print)	9781450331456
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702230
Publication status	Published - 18 Apr 2015
Event	33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015: Crossings - COEX, Seoul, Korea, Republic of Duration: 18 Apr 2015 → 23 Apr 2015 Conference number: 33 http://chi2015.acm.org/

Conference

Conference	33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015
Abbreviated title	CHI 2015
Country/Territory	Korea, Republic of
City	Seoul
Period	18/04/15 → 23/04/15
Other	For over 30 years, the CHI conference (pronounced ‘kai’) has attracted the world’s leading researchers and practitioners in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) from businesses and universities to share ground-breaking research and innovations related to how humans interact with digital technologies. The Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) CHI conference is the world's premiere conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, presenting a highly selective showcase of the very best advances across the disciplines of computer science, cognitive psychology, design, social science, human factors, artificial intelligence, graphics, visualization, multi-media design and other disciplines.
Internet address	http://chi2015.acm.org/

Research Groups and Themes

Digital Health

Keywords

Behavior change
Habit formation
Smartphone apps

Access to Document

10.1145/2702123.2702230

Handle.net

Persistent link

Cite this

@inproceedings{df475da49ee14821b932722201050d2f,

title = "Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation",

abstract = "Habit formation is an important part of behavior change interventions: To ensure an intervention has long-term effects, the new behavior has to turn into a habit and become automatic. Smartphone apps could help with this process by supporting habit formation. To better understand how, we conducted a 4-week study exploring the influence of different types of cues and positive reinforcement on habit formation and reviewed the functionality of 115 habit formation apps. We discovered that relying on reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while the use of event-based cues led to increased automaticity; positive reinforcement was ineffective. The functionality review revealed that existing apps focus on self-tracking and reminders, and do not support event-based cues. We argue that apps, and technology-based interventions in general, have the potential to provide real habit support, and present design guidelines for interventions that could support habit formation through contextual cues and implementation intentions.",

keywords = "Behavior change, Habit formation, Smartphone apps",

author = "Katarzyna Stawarz and Cox, {Anna L.} and Ann Blandford",

year = "2015",

month = apr,

day = "18",

doi = "10.1145/2702123.2702230",

language = "English",

isbn = "9781450331456",

volume = "2015-April",

pages = "2653--2662",

booktitle = "Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

address = "United States",

note = "33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015 : Crossings, CHI 2015 ; Conference date: 18-04-2015 Through 23-04-2015",

url = "http://chi2015.acm.org/",

}

Stawarz, K, Cox, AL & Blandford, A 2015, Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings. vol. 2015-April, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), pp. 2653-2662, 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, 18/04/15. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702230

Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation. / Stawarz, Katarzyna; Cox, Anna L.; Blandford, Ann.
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings. Vol. 2015-April Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2015. p. 2653-2662.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

TY - GEN

T1 - Beyond self-tracking and reminders

T2 - 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2015

AU - Stawarz, Katarzyna

AU - Cox, Anna L.

AU - Blandford, Ann

N1 - Conference code: 33

PY - 2015/4/18

Y1 - 2015/4/18

N2 - Habit formation is an important part of behavior change interventions: To ensure an intervention has long-term effects, the new behavior has to turn into a habit and become automatic. Smartphone apps could help with this process by supporting habit formation. To better understand how, we conducted a 4-week study exploring the influence of different types of cues and positive reinforcement on habit formation and reviewed the functionality of 115 habit formation apps. We discovered that relying on reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while the use of event-based cues led to increased automaticity; positive reinforcement was ineffective. The functionality review revealed that existing apps focus on self-tracking and reminders, and do not support event-based cues. We argue that apps, and technology-based interventions in general, have the potential to provide real habit support, and present design guidelines for interventions that could support habit formation through contextual cues and implementation intentions.

AB - Habit formation is an important part of behavior change interventions: To ensure an intervention has long-term effects, the new behavior has to turn into a habit and become automatic. Smartphone apps could help with this process by supporting habit formation. To better understand how, we conducted a 4-week study exploring the influence of different types of cues and positive reinforcement on habit formation and reviewed the functionality of 115 habit formation apps. We discovered that relying on reminders supported repetition but hindered habit development, while the use of event-based cues led to increased automaticity; positive reinforcement was ineffective. The functionality review revealed that existing apps focus on self-tracking and reminders, and do not support event-based cues. We argue that apps, and technology-based interventions in general, have the potential to provide real habit support, and present design guidelines for interventions that could support habit formation through contextual cues and implementation intentions.

KW - Behavior change

KW - Habit formation

KW - Smartphone apps

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84951129309&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/2702123.2702230

DO - 10.1145/2702123.2702230

M3 - Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

AN - SCOPUS:84951129309

SN - 9781450331456

VL - 2015-April

SP - 2653

EP - 2662

BT - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Y2 - 18 April 2015 through 23 April 2015

ER -

Beyond self-tracking and reminders: Designing smartphone apps that support habit formation

Abstract

Conference

Research Groups and Themes

Keywords

Access to Document

Handle.net

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this