Designing salient and supportive systems for proximal behaviors.

Designers should create salient reminders and support mechanisms to help users stick to near-term plans by reducing participation costs and increasing belief in the ease of tasks.

About this paper

The author conducted two studies to understand how temporal distance affects planned behavior, finding that attitudes become more important for distant events while perceived behavior control influences intentions regardless of timing.

These findings advance the Theory of Planned Behavior and provide strategies for designers and event organizers to motivate behaviors over different timeframes.

Here are some methods used in this study:

Field Experiment Between-Subjects Experiment

Which part of the paper did the design guideline come from?

“We hypothesized that people tend to have a higher intention to perform the behavior in the far future compared to near future (H5). Results of the paired-samples t-test show that the mean of willingness to attend the yoga class differs a month before the event (M=.80, SD=.41) and a few days before the event (M=.60, SD=.49) at the .01 level of significance (t=2.70, df=29, p<.01, 95% CI, for a mean difference .05 to .35, r=.62). We should point out that in the end, only 6 participants actually (...)” (‘Change in Intention Over Time’ section)

Suh, M. (Mia), & Hsieh, G. (2016). Designing for Future Behaviors. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Inspiration and scope

In this paper, the authors focused on people aiming to engage in planned behavior or adhere to their plans, relating to understanding needs and motivations to encourage participation and adherence.

You are designing for kids with OCD using a VR therapy system integrating personalized and interactive elements for their experiences, triggers, and preferences. Your design differs from the paper as the paper targets individuals generally willing to adhere to plans, while your audience includes kids with OCD facing severe anxiety and compulsive behaviors. At the same time, both contexts require understanding behavior change factors like incentives, triggers, and barriers. Techniques like goal setting, progress tracking, and feedback could be adapted in both settings.

Also, they differ as the academic paper focuses on near-term plan adherence with short-term behavior modification, while your context involves long-term treatment of enduring OCD behaviors in children, demanding ongoing interventions and gradual changes. At the same time, both benefit from personalized and engaging experiences. Personalizing VR for children with OCD to reduce anxiety and foster positive outcomes mirrors the need for engaging design to foster adherence.

Leveraging these similarities, consider designing a VR system with customizable features, interactive elements, and relatable scenarios. This way, children feel more connected and engaged in their therapy, reducing anxiety and fostering sustained behavior change.

Your input

  • What: to treat patients with OCD symptoms using VR therapy methods
  • Who: kids with OCD symptoms
  • Design stage: Research, Ideation

Understanding users

The following user needs and pain points may apply to your design target as well:

Personalized VR Therapy

Designers should consider implementing customizable VR therapy scenarios to cater to individual user needs. This approach can make therapy sessions more engaging and relevant, which might improve therapeutic outcomes and adherence.

Progress Tracking and Feedback Mechanisms

Incorporating features that allow users to set goals, track their progress, and receive feedback can help maintain motivation and monitor improvements over time. Such features can be particularly useful for keeping patients engaged in their therapy.

Design ideas

Consider the following components for your design:

1

Incorporate virtual environments based on familiar settings like the child's home or school.

2

Implement gamified elements such as earning badges for completing tasks and reaching milestones.

3

Use customizable avatars that children can personalize to look like themselves or their favorite characters.

Methods for you

Consider the following method(s) used in this paper for your design work:

Theory Of Planned Behavior

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior can help identify and target the beliefs influencing kids with OCD symptoms regarding VR therapy. Designers should focus on the attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control aspects to promote therapy engagement.

Construal Level Theory

Applying Construal Level Theory can help understand how kids with OCD might view VR therapy depending on how immediate or distant the therapy sessions are. Focus on the 'why' for future sessions and 'how' for upcoming ones for better engagement.

[Figure 1] From this figure, you can understand how theoretical frameworks like the Theory of Planned Behavior can be used to structure user research, which may help you investigate the problem space for designing VR therapy for kids with OCD.