Implementing persuasive technology for mobile
phones may be appropriate, since most of the active
participants (4/5) stated that they carry mobile phones while
taking a walk. Additionally, the persuasive potential of mobile
phones [3] has been envisioned through applications that
provide timed information to nudge their users toward specific
actions. Therefore, we propose Ambient Information Systems
(AIS) for mobile phones to implement persuasion strategies
that motivate elders to exercise. More details about the design
and implementation of the system are presented in [4]. AISs are
aesthetically pleasing applications that provide representations
of valuable information that are easy to comprehend [5,6]. An
AIS can work as i) Peripheral Displays if they are out of the
focus of attention and allow users to monitor information
without distracting or burdening them; and as ii) Notification
Systems if they are used in a divided-attention, multitasking
situation, attempting to deliver valuable information without
introducing unwanted interruptions to a primary task [7]. Thus,
with the aim to identify how the persuasion strategies for
exercising should be adapted for the elderly, we designed and
evaluated an AIS for mobile phones that by requiring minimal
attention and cognitive effort from older adults, makes them
aware of relevant information that motivates them to exercise.
The following Section presents some of the systems that
provide evidence of the effectiveness of different persuasion
strategies that have been evaluated in different contexts.
Section III presents the persuasion strategies we incorporated
into the design of our AIS, while Section IV presents its design.
Section V describes the formative evaluation we carried out to
validate the persuasion strategies. And finally, section VI
concludes and presents our plans for future work.