The present paper describes and illustrates the process of developing a mobile application intended as a Behaviour Change Support System for people who want to improve their punctuality and time-keeping skills. Design science approach together with Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model was used. The presented article focuses on the software development process from the perspective of using the PSD model as the central design framework and design science approach (including user evaluation) as the guiding development process.
Much of the current literature on persuasive systems focuses on describing the
behavioral challenge and outcomes after interventions, but the system used in the process is
seldom described in clear detail as regards software architecture, leaving developers
and researchers alike with limited insights as regards the design of the systems. Such
lack of visibility results in so-called black box thinking [
The present paper describes the process of designing and developing a persuasive
mobile device app. The design and development work is based on the theoretical
frameworks of the Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model and it employs Design
Science Research Method (DSRM) [
In this design science research study the selected problem domain for the
application is chronic tardiness and challenges with punctuality: the inability to do things in a
timely manner. Such issues can contribute to a person’s general mental well-being
through social pressures and the stress involved; punctuality problems can also affect
productivity and success at work or in education [
According to the Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model [
A crucial stage of persuasive systems development is the accurate and careful
analysis of the Persuasion Context. The context includes determining what is the
intent of persuasion (what the system is expected to achieve), what is the persuasion
event, and who is the persuader (also part of the intent of persuasion). The PSD model
stipulates that persuasion intent includes the persuader (stakeholders deciding on the
system components) and the change type (does the system seek change in behavior,
attitude, or both) [
Up to 20% of people in the USA have issues with punctuality [
Factors that are common among those people who do not have problems with
keeping time include a realistic mindset as regards time, a readiness to plan schedules
to tolerate unforeseen delays, a tendency to be organized and to analyze their actions,
and not minding having little downtime between activities [
These considerations have been taken into account in the Persuasion Context analysis. 3
The presented development project follows the Design Science Research (DSR), as
outlined by Hevner et al. [
The software artifact developed to address the identified behavior change targets in
the area of time management and punctuality was named RightOnTime in order to
suggest timeliness and successful time management. The main features of the app
include appointment/event planning (‘Activity’) and a time awareness practice
(‘Practice’) section where users can train their time-awareness. In addition, the app includes
push notification tips and hints that provide the user with suggestions, encouragement
and further information regarding punctuality and achieving better time-keeping
skills. The tips and hints are intended as support material for the user’s behavior
change process and support the strategy of direct persuasion. The messages are not
tailored to individual users but are general and based on the most common time
perception issues identified in the guiding literature [
The initial steps of the development process involved the analysis of the Persuasion
Context: intent, event, and strategy [
Intent. The behavior change intent of the app is to assist end-users to achieve change
in their time management and punctuality skills as regards both behavior and possibly
also attitude levels [
Event. Persuasion event consists of the concepts of Use, User, and Technology Context.
Use Context: The focus of activities in the app is on everyday routines and events
– whether private, education or work related – and the content and selection of
activities is entirely up to the user. The application encourages planning time use, reducing
the larger task of learning punctuality into smaller chunks of individual tasks, and
then reflecting on action after set events and activities. These activities stem from the
literature [
User Context: The application is intended for individuals who want to develop
their time-management skills and become more punctual in their everyday life. The
potential users are expected to use the system because they have experienced social
discomfort as a result of their inability to be punctual, or have found that better time
management skills (and punctuality) would benefit them in their professional (or
equivalent) aspirations. Looking at some characteristics of punctual people [
Technology Context: The application is developed for mobile iOS devices (namely, iPhone but it also runs on iPads). The benefit of developing an app for mobiles is in making the BCSS available at all times, thereby matching the Use Context as closely as possible. Developing the system for iOS devices necessarily ruled out users of other mobile platforms (Android, Windows, Sailfish, BlackBerry, etc.) at this point in time, but the design principles and persuasive feature set applied in the present project can also be applied to other platforms.
Strategy. The analysis of feasible approaches, namely, planning, reflection and
awareness, indicates that the app will use a direct route in the delivery of the
persuasive content. Focus on features that require the user to evaluate his or her actions
(reflect) promotes the direct route as the user has to elaborate on the actions, that is,
engage in intellect based debate over actions and their consequences instead of
relying on easily-available heuristics or unfounded assumptions [
Every section of the application includes a description of its purpose and guidance on how to use it. The app also provides a selection of references to background information on chronic tardiness.
What is more interesting for our purposes here, based on the Persuasion Context
analysis, a set of feasible persuasive features was selected from three of the four PSD
design feature categories [
too big to manage as such, and therefore the objective is split into smaller goals and objectives: individual tasks. Also, by having control over each activity and practice task, the user is allowed to select less critical tasks, thus reducing the possible stress involved if, for example, failure at a task has some serious consequences.
regarding their own tasks (timeliness and satisfaction). The app also requests user to perform reflection by showing summaries of their daily assessments. In addition, the Practice feature supports observing one’s own behavior through set tasks so that it is possible to learn better time estimation.
self. The reminders considered here concern the push notifications for users to complete their self-assessments and to view their assessment summaries.
Tips and Hints push notifications are provided daily (three per day). The content of the notifications provide information, encouragement and guidance as regards punctual behavior. “About” section provides information about the origin, purpose and designers of the app. The development team members’ credentials and contact information are included in the “About” section of the app in order to communicate openly who is behind the app and to encourage users to ask for more information if necessary. 4.3
Persuasion Context manifests itself in architecture terms as components for
persuasion event (Use Context, User Context and Technology Context) and as a layer of
components for persuasion message and route (system-user interaction and
systemmediated messages, in the case of RightOnTime) [
The architecture, seen in Figure 1, shows the four relevant components. The User
context involves information about the user, and based on this information
appropriate persuasion strategies can be employed. Use Context enables the user interface and
data storage to employ the appropriate persuasion strategies. User-system Interaction
includes means for the user to set tasks, complete assessments, view results, etc., and
it allows the system to record the necessary data about the users and by the users.
System-mediated Messages component defines what content and which route is used
for conveying behavior change messages to the user. [
The technology context (iOS) in the case of RightOnTime has guided the applied software pattern in practice. Apple’s application development interface uses Model View Controller (MVC) as a design pattern1, which involves three groups: the model, the view and the controller. The model handles objects related to data, view handles objects related to user interface and controller is a mediator between view and model object. In our application, model object contains data related to calendar event, local notifications, and user settings. Such data are persistent in the application and have no explicit relationship with the application’s view object. The interaction between the application’s model and view objects takes place through the controller object. In our application there are three persistent data storages: device’s database (SQLite), Calendar and Local notification. A user’s setting and user’s self-evaluations data are stored in SQLite. iOS application framework provides access to iOS calendar database, and we utilized iOS calendar to store data related to user’s events. Data such as notification time and notification message are kept in local notification.
All graphics, the user interface, and interactions are handled by view object. The user can view and update model objects. However, view and model objects do not have any explicit connection and all interaction between view and model object is
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPediaCocoaCore/MVC.html handled through the controller object. The controller object plays an intermediary role between the application’s view object and the model object. It learns updates from a user and notifies the update to the model object. It is also used as a tunnel to display the model object to the user.
The software was implemented in Objective-C programing, which is the primary language for developing iOS and OX software2. Objective-C follows syntax of primitive C language, and it has also object-oriented features. In addition to plain objective C-programing language, we have also utilized Apple’s foundation framework to develop our application. The app’s interface follows iOS human interface guidelines.3, and the look and feel aims at being “design neutral” in terms of use of any custom components. Instead the look and feel of the app relies on Apple’s framework components to enhance the sense of familiarity and trustworthiness that comes with having used the device already. 5
Based on the Persuasion Context analysis, the selected persuasive features (Table 1) were delivered in three main elements of the application: Activity, Practice and Tips and Hints. Visually the app displays a tabular interface with four main sections: Home, Practice, Self-evaluation and Setting sections (Figure 2). Navigation from one section to another is done by selecting a relevant tab button.
modify tasks. When there are no tasks on the relevant day, the page shows a brief description of the purpose of the view. The description also includes instructions for how to set new events (helpful for first time use).
Tips and Hints: The tips and hints are shown as push notifications (Figure 3). The timing of these notifications can be random (default) or the user can fix set times for three notification per day under Settings (Figure 4).
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ProgrammingWit hObjectiveC/Introduction/Introduction.html 3 iOS Human Interface Guideline, Apple Inc.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileH IG/
user is prompted to evaluate the timeliness and perceived effort involved in the task, and at a specified time in the day the system prompts the user to review a summary of that day’s activity assessments (Figure 3).
Setting: Under settings the user can opt to use the system under default settings (random time for all notifications, including requests to provide assessments), or custom settings where user sets times for all notifications and interactions with the system (Figure 4).
An evaluation of the persuasiveness of the app’s main features of Primary task
support and Computer-human dialogue support was conducted by means of employing
five respondents to use the system for five days. After the experiment period the
participants evaluated their experiences on a Likert-type scale and by providing
openended responses. The questions for the Likert-type ratings were adapted from a
perceived persuasiveness questionnaire [
user understand his or her present time management problems and eventual developments through selfmonitoring.
the users knowledge as regards punctual habits and effective time-keeping during the period of system use.
Remind user of timeliness Does the app help users to Likert tasks and of reflection- perform required tasks in /open supporting features (self- the application? ended monitoring tasks). comments Primary task support. Predominantly, the respondents indicated that the app did offer encouragement and support with the primary features of reduction and selfmonitoring, thus yielding a positive response on the Primary task support features. In the open comments the respondents acknowledged that setting specific tasks helped in seeing time allocation in more concrete terms and to think about what activities need longer or shorter time allocation. Long-term benefits of task setting as a means of observing time use were noted upon, but there was also concern that setting tasks daily for a longer time might become tedious.
Computer-human dialogue support. All but one participant stated that the reminders from the system were helpful in performing the required actions (assessments, reflection). The remaining one expressed a neutral stand on this issue. The division was stronger for the users’ assessment on whether they were able to learn meaningful things about timely behavior from the app: all but one agreed (or strongly agreed), where one respondent strongly disagreed. For this respondent the reminder was an irritant and did not have any function in supporting the main task. Therefore, the overall response to the computer-human dialog support features in the app was positive, but the potential of reminders and notifications to irritate users should not be ignored.
Desirability test. Each participant selected five adjectives from a large, pre-set group of 118 adjectives. Of the total 25 selections done by the five respondents in the present evaluation three words were selected by four respondents: usable, personal, and clear. Innovative was selected three times; helpful and accessible were selected twice.
Relevant, ordinary, effective, creative, complex, and boring were all selected once.
While usable, personal and clear are positive attributes for the app, as are helpful,
accessible, relevant, effective and creative, we can see that these positive impressions
on the use and novelty of the system are also juxtaposed with the minority
assessments of ordinary, complex, and boring (design aesthetics elements, largely).
To summarize the results, the features from Primary Task Support category
(reduction, self-monitoring, and rehearsal) and Dialog Support (reminders, suggestion) offer
encouragement, support and increased knowledge and awareness in the problem
domain (that is, higher elaboration [
This paper presented the process of developing a persuasive mobile app based on PSD principles of Persuasion Context analysis leading to selection of persuasive features of the system. The evaluation of the produced app focused on the match between selected features and perceived persuasiveness.
We learned that using the PSD model is a feasible means of defining and describing persuasive software features that match the problem domain. The implications from the development project and this finding are that following a systematic analysis process of the Persuasion Context we can design systems in a way that link intention to outcome in a traceable manner that also allows analysis not only to see whether the system in general affects the outcome, but more precisely which features contribute to the behavior change outcomes and how. Such increased detail in the description of persuasive information systems offers a means of advancing technology development and helps the field in establishing visibility and transparency as regards the technological component in the behavior change process.
As for future research and development of the app, the unobtrusiveness of the
system interaction (whether system messages and requests come at a user-defined time or
at random times) has been studied [