Health Monitoring Apps: An Evaluation of the Persuasive System Design Model for Human Wellbeing

Abstract

In the current era of ubiquitous computing and mobile technology, almost all human beings use various self-monitoring applications. Mobile applications could be the best health assistant for safety and adopting a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, persuasive designing is a compulsory element for designing such apps. A popular model for persuasive design named the Persuasive System Design (PSD) model is a generalized model for whole persuasive technologies. Any type of persuasive application could be designed using this model. Designing any special type of application using the PSD model could be difficult because of its generalized behavior which fails to provide moral support for users of health applications. There is a strong need to propose a customized and improved persuasive system design model for each category to overcome the issue. This study evaluates the PSD model and finds persuasive gaps in users of the Mobile Health Monitoring application, developed by following the PSD model. Furthermore, this study finds that users misunderstand health-related problems when using such apps. A misunderstanding of this nature can have serious consequences for the user’s life in some cases.