Narrative-Based Visual Feedback to Encourage Sustained Physical Activity

Abstract

Stories are a core way human beings make meaning and sense of the world and our lived experiences, including our behaviors, desires, and goals. Narrative structures, both visual and textual, help us understand and act on information, while also evoking strong emotions. Focusing on the health context, this research examines the effectiveness of narrative-based feedback in motivating physical activity behaviors and underlying attitudes over longitudinal periods. After collecting two weeks of baseline physical activity levels, N=39 participants installed our smartphone application, WhoIsZuki. The WhoIsZuki app supports goal setting and semi-automated activity tracking, and it provides an ambient display that visually encodes these tracked activities as well as progress toward goals. Half of participants received a version of the interface that supplied behavioral feedback in the form of a multi-chapter episodic narrative, while the other half received a control condition version that provided an aesthetically-similar visualization but without any characterization, episodic structure, dramatic effect, or other narrative elements. After interacting with these versions for four months, our analysis showed that participants receiving the multi-chapter narrative feedback performed more physical activity, achieved more goals, experienced more positive psychological shifts, and overall engaged more meaningfully with the digital intervention.