Using personal informatics to motivate physical activity: could we be doing it wrong?

The global level of obesity and overweight is on the increase. Personal informatics – tools which assist users to collect and view information on their behaviours and habits – could help to reverse this trend by making users more aware of their daily level of physical activity. Most tools available use high-complexity high- engagement interfaces to convey this information. We argue that simpler interfaces may be more suitable for users who are not highly motivated to undertake physical activity. We discuss our recent work in designing and evaluating such an interface.