Friends in Activity Trackers: Design Opportunities and Mediator Issues in Health Products and Services

Abstract

Other people’s reactions, including attention, affection, and reputation, reinforce an individual’s desirable behaviors. Specifically, this reinforcement has shown effectiveness in promoting health-related behavioral changes. This is social reinforcement, and the person who provides it is a mediator. Although products and services that promote health-related behavior, such as activity trackers, have increased dramatically in the market, little attention has been given to their social influences, such as social reinforcement from mediators. Activity trackers collect a log of daily activity from the user and share it with other users through an application. Naturally, users compare data and compete through the application. Although users are connected through the activity trackers, the influences differ according to the different roles of mediators. To reveal the roles and influences of mediators when using activity trackers, we conducted interviews with 12 participants who use activity trackers to maintain their health behaviors. We found that the participants classified mediators into several groups according to their roles and that the participants wanted to have different qualities in their social interaction with different mediator types. Based on these findings, we explored design opportunities and issues regarding the mediators in health promotion products and services.