Smartwatches and fitness apps promise to help us battle obesity and prevent diseases. But those daily targets our technology sets for us can soon start to seem like too much of a slog.
That’s because most fitness aids are designed with a focus on technology and data engineering, not on the interventions they deliver. Hourly prompts to move become an annoyance when you naturally do more exercise at a certain time of day. A line that fills with color as you approach your goal doesn’t fill you with a sense of achievement. These messages don’t factor in what drives us to exercise or when we feel most energetic. They don’t make the emotional connections that could help us to achieve more.
At Fractal, we believe that a fusion of design, behavioral science and AI can create that emotional connection. We put that into practice during a recent project to help a government health agency encourage healthier habits among its citizens.
Comprehending the challenge
Countering obesity was the agency’s biggest concern. Health data showed that around 65% of the country’s population is obese or overweight. In addition, abundant, rich food is integral to its culture. As a result, the project focused on encouraging citizens to take more daily steps – which wouldn’t be easy because the hot and humid climate does little to encourage physical activity.
But we quickly identified a way to help improve that picture. Around 85% of the country’s citizens had a smartwatch, which would provide valuable data on individuals’ activity levels. To unlock that information, we developed an app that captures smartwatch data and takes it to a cloud-based environment for processing. Next, we needed to find the most effective way to use it.
Doing things differently
We studied various behavioral change models, along with the ways that smartwatch manufacturers typically approach step goals. There were three key areas that we wanted to change:
Most behavioral change models ask people to meet aspirational goals, such as the widely accepted gold standard of 10,000 steps per day
Leaderboards are focused on comparisons with other users, so those at the bottom start to feel like losers
Outcomes are typically rendered as long-term benefits like weight loss or improved health, so progress can seem slow or nonexistent
By doing these things differently, we would be able create a much more personalized, positive and achievable experience for our cohort of users.
Fractal’s AI capability allowed us to keep track of individual data and replace big, aspirational goals with small, personalized ones. We decided to ask users to do just 1% more than they had the day before. Those goals were managed on a personal level too. When a person had been using the app for a week or two, we used their past data to figure out when they were most active during the day. By sending them a message just before this ‘active time’, we could prompt them to get active at a time that felt natural to them.
We also did away with leaderboards and unhelpful comparisons with others. By comparing individuals against their own previous day’s activity instead, we would help them recognize even the smallest gains and feel that they were winning.
As for those demotivating, long-term benefits, we knew that we needed to replace them with a more immediate, inspiring and deeply emotional reward. To quote psychologist Danny Kahneman, “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” We tasked our designers to create that story.
Making an emotional connection
Studies show that if people see their behavior causing something like a plant to grow, they develop an emotional attachment. That’s why our designers created a blooming rose – the flower associated with the deepest emotional connections – as the fitness app’s reward.
This image of a rose, with lush green leaves and a beautiful flower, gradually fills with color and detail as the person takes more steps towards that day’s goal. When the goal is met, the flower will be in full bloom.
It works the other way too. If the individual starts to neglect their step target, the rose will slowly wither and die. That emotional cost for inactivity proved extremely effective, as many users told us they kept meeting their daily step targets because they wanted their flower to thrive.
Powering positive change
This combination of data, AI and device interventions – created through a deep understanding of human behavior and design – brought powerful results.
To measure them, we divided the users into two groups: active people who were already taking around 2,500 steps per day, and inactive ones who were only taking 600-700. After a month of using the app, the inactive users had increased their steps to around 2,500 a day. Meanwhile the active individuals were typically taking almost 5,000 steps.
Ultimately, creating behavioral change across a large and diverse group like a population is about making people want to do certain things, not just telling them to do them. When health apps achieve this emotional connection, they can be used to encourage multiple behaviors, from drinking more water to getting enough sleep. By incorporating medical information such as test results, they can deliver an even more personalized experience that is truly tailored to the individual’s health. At Fractal, we are excited to see just how much emotionally intelligent fitness technology can help its users achieve.
Author speak
As a chief evangelist of Fractal and chairman of FinalMile Consulting, Biju is playing the new game that is emerging at the intersection of human and machine intelligence. He is driven by the belief that the more we understand the inscrutable algorithm in our brains, the better the technology we develop for our machines will be.
Sandeep is a member of Fractal’s executive team and business head for the company’s Asia-Pacific region, where he has led collaborations with government and public sector organizations to deploy AI for social impact. He previously led Fractal’s global healthcare practice and played a key role in the early development and commercialization of the company’s healthcare AI focused start-up, Qure.ai.
