Defining a Design Space for Persuasive Cooperative Interactions in Mobile Exertion Applications

This paper presents a design space for persuasive cooperative persuasive interactions for mobile exertion applications. This type of software bridges entertainment with workout activities, providing users with intuitive and fun ways to track their performances. Persuasion and, in particular, cooperative interactions play a pivotal role in user motivation – they are paramount to convince individuals to pursue their goals and overcome obstacles. Applications of this type have started to offer more diverse functionalities, often becoming difficult to label and pinpoint the type of design cues being employed to foster these persuasive and cooperative facets. In this article we propose a design space for this type of features in such software. The design exercise roots itself in existing literature and the results for an online survey we deployed to assess usage habits for this type of applications. Validation is underway and will be achieved via the creation of an application that covers the proposed dimensions.