Ambient influence: can twinkly lights lure and abstract representations trigger behavioral change

Yvonne Rogers, William Hazlewood, Paul Marshall, Nick Dalton, Susanna Hertrich

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

122 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Can ubiquitous technologies be designed to nudge people to change their behavior? If so, how? We describe an ambient installation that was intended to help people decide - and to encourage them to reflect - when confronted with a choice. In this particular case, it was whether to take the stairs or the elevator in their place of work. The rationale was to push people towards a desired behavior at the point of decision-making and to reflect upon theirs and others' aggregate behavior. We describe the ambient displays that were developed and the prototyping studies in which they were evaluated. The findings from an in-the-wild study are then presented. They reveal that even though people said they were not aware of changing their behavior, logged data of their actual behavior showed a significant change. We discuss these mixed findings in relation to whether ambient displays can influence at an unconscious or conscious level.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherACM
Pages261-270
ISBN (Print)978-1-60558-843-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010
EventProceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing -
Duration: 1 Jan 2010 → …

Conference

ConferenceProceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing
Period1/01/10 → …

Keywords

  • ambient displays
  • behavioral change
  • in-the-wild study
  • persuasive technology

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