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 Logistic Regression

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 the characteristics of event organizers and designers to encourage participation in proximal behaviors.

You are designing for community college students by creating AR/VR experiences that simplify complex learning. Your design context focuses on community college students while the paper targets broader audiences like event organizers. At the same time, both aim to influence user behavior. While the paper seeks to encourage adherence, your AR/VR designs influence learning behaviors and engagement. Techniques like gamification and interactive elements benefit both areas.

Also, the paper's design focuses on near-term behavioral changes, whereas your AR/VR designs aim for sustained interaction and long-term progress. At the same time, both address user motivation to be effective. The paper encourages follow-through on plans, while your designs maintain student interest. Short-term goals, immediate feedback, and motivational cues can be adapted in both scenarios.

By leveraging these similarities, consider designing AR/VR experiences that provide contextual, timely feedback, incorporating gamified elements like reward systems and progress tracking. This increases student engagement and self-efficacy, achieving short-term goals and sustaining long-term success.

Your input

  • What: AR/VR
  • Who: Community college student