Rethinking Technologies for Behavior Change

Human-Computer Interaction researchers are increasingly designing technologies aimed at supporting “behavior change.” The model of change, which most of these works embrace, focuses on the idea that change occurs on the behavioral level and that it is externalistic, monistic, mechanistic, fragmented, and episodic. We think that a different take, focusing on the internal aspects of change, may integrate and extend what has been done using this behavioral model. We conducted 20 interviews exploring how individuals live, account for, and manage life changes. Then, we outlined five tentative patterns we identified across different kinds of changes reported by the interviewees, pointing out that change might be internalistic, multiple, intentional, holistic, and continuous. This led us to propose a set of design considerations for the evolution of the current behavior change technologies. Finally, we suggested some preliminary lines of future research, which aim to open the design space of technologies for change.