The Activated Motivation Toolkit: Towards Self-Determined Self-Improvement Technology

每天，数以百万计的人使用Fitbit、智能手表或智能手机等技术来支持自我提升。这些设备及其关联的应用程序已经变得既便宜又普及；它们监控我们的购物习惯、身体活动和生态足迹，并将这些数据可视化，以帮助我们反思自己的局限性，设定目标并取得进展，并认可成就。这些技术的潜在影响是巨大的；改善我们的财务状况，教育我们自己，发展新的技能，并改善我们的健康和我们这个星球的健康。然而，研究让人们对它们的有效性产生了怀疑。也就是说，随着时间的推移，人们往往会失去动力，无法实现自己的个人目标。为了解决这些不足，我将探索我们如何利用关于人类动机的既定理论来创造技术，以推动变革，激发自我反省和坚持不懈，并促进我们的健康和福祉。这项研究计划的长期目标是使人机交互研究人员和实践者能够将自我决定理论的概念深度整合到我们今天使用的技术中，并塑造增强现实等新兴技术的设计。自我决定理论是一种来自心理学的广泛验证的宏观理论，描述了人类的动机和幸福感。拟议中的研究计划将首次展示如何利用激活的动机，即使用文本、图像和音频来激励个人在自我改进任务中更具接受性、参与性和坚持性，从而使自我改进技术更有效。为此，该研究计划将致力于一系列相互关联的短期目标：1)一系列实验室研究将检验如何将激活的动机整合到常见的用户界面元素(例如，图标、音频)和软件功能(例如，健身或活动跟踪应用程序)中，同时使用定性方法来了解何时最有效；2)一系列实地研究将通过在健身、营养和气候变化等领域以及各种设备(包括智能手机、智能手表和增强现实)的原型开发，在实践中证明有效性和可行性；3)将开发并与研究社区和行业合作伙伴共享激活的动机工具包，其中包括实验研究中的工作实例和任务。这些研究活动将共同建立在心理学的既定理论基础上，以改善软件界面以促进自我改进，并最终改善加拿大人的健康和福祉。通过这项研究，学生将接受关于人机交互、设计以及定性和定量研究方法的基本和应用研究方法的培训。这些都是各种行业的关键技能，包括软件工程、医疗保健和教育。

Everyday, millions of people use technologies like a fitbit, smartwatch, or smartphone to support self-improvement. These devices and their associated apps have become both inexpensive and pervasive; they monitor our shopping habits, physical activity, and ecological footprint and visualize that data to help us reflect on our limitations, to set and make progress towards goals, and recognize achievements. The potential impacts of these technologies are immense; to improve our finances, to educate ourselves and develop new skills, and to improve our health and the health of our planet. However, research has cast doubt on their effectiveness. That is, people tend to lose motivation over time and fail to meet their personal goals. To address these shortcomings, I will explore how we can use established theories of human motivation to create technologies that motivate change, provoke self-reflection and persistence, and promote our health and well-being. The long-term objective of this research program is to enable Human-Computer Interaction researchers and practitioners to deeply integrate the concepts of Self-Determination Theory - an extensively validated macro-theory from psychology that describes human motivation and well-being - into the technologies we use today, and to shape the design of emerging technologies like augmented reality. The proposed research program will be the first to demonstrate how activated motivation, the use of text, images, and audio to prime individuals to be more receptive, engaged, and persistent during self-improvement tasks, can be used to make self-improvement technologies more effective. To do so, this research program will engage in an interconnected series of short-term goals:  1) a series of laboratory studies will examine how activated motivation can be integrated into common user interface elements (e.g., icons, audio) and software features (e.g., fitness or activity tracking apps) while qualitative methods are used to develop an understanding of when it is most effective; 2) a series of field studies will demonstrate efficacy and feasibility in practice through prototype development in domains like fitness, nutrition, and climate change, and across a variety of devices, including smartphone, smartwatch, and augmented reality; and 3) an Activated Motivation Toolkit will be developed and shared with the research community and industry partners which includes working examples and tasks from the experimental studies. Together, these research activities will build on established theories from psychology to improve software interfaces for self-improvement, and ultimately, the health and well-being of Canadians. Through this research, students will receive training in fundamental and applied research methods in human-computer interaction, design, and qualitative and quantitative research methods.  These are critical skills for a variety of industries, including software engineering, healthcare and education.