Publication date: 5 de June, 2017

Improving Healthcare by Persuasive Technology

Persuasive Technology is an interdisciplinary research field, focusing on the design, development and evaluation of interactive technologies aimed at changing people’s attitudes or behaviors through persuasion and social influence.

Researchers and practitioners from industry and academia working in the field of persuasive technologies are aiming at enriching people’s lives in various domains, e.g. health, safety, and the environment, by supporting their personal goals to change their behavior.

Recently in their work “Does Beauty Matter in Behavior Change?”, Lígia Duro, PhD Student from Digital Media UTAustin|Portugal Program, Teresa Romão, NOVA LINCS researcher from the Multimodal Systems Group, Evangelos Karapanos (Persuasive Technologies Lab, Cyprus University of Technology) and Pedro Campos (M-iti), seek to determine the influence of the aesthetic aspects of the presentation of a textual message in its motivating or persuasive effect. Particularly, how the design of motivational messages, for example in wearables, are able to encourage people to exercise regularly and thus improve their healthcare and wellbeing.

This work was presented at the 12th International Conference on Persuasive Technologies (Persuasive 2017) and received the Best Poster Award.