5.2 Consequences as design opportunities for wellness APPs
5.2.2 The emotional consequences
There are six types of emotional consequences in the table 5-3. The first type of emotional consequences, “The personal feelings about sociability” describes all the feelings brought from social networks. “Sharing”, “Interactive”, “topic”,
“Accompanied” and “inspired” are the positive feelings that arise between
communities. However, “Private” and “Personal” show the privacy that participants seek during the sociability.
[Quote 01] Participant 7: “Friends’ encouragement during taking exercise makes me fell accompanied and inspired.”
[Quote 02] Participant 2: “Go to gym with friends can make me feel the peer social, and still keep the privacy.”
The second type, “The personal feelings about merit” characterize the feelings about the result that participants expect after working out. They pursue the
“effective” consequence, and are willing to try the “experimental” usage.
[Quote 03] Participant 7: “I’ll be encouraged by accumulating healthy points to work harder; I will experience the effective consequence through this process.”
[Quote 04] Participant 2: “The free wellness APPs can make me feel experimental through the using experience.”
“The personal feelings about efforts” is the third type of emotional
consequences. It depicts the feelings when participants facing the efforts they need to make, such as “Diligent”, “Fulfilled” and “Purposive”.
59
[Quote 05] Participant 6: “I’m very diligent to achieve the goal that I set, and be fulfilled when completing the mission.”
The next type, “The personal feelings toward the service”, includes emotions brought by services, such as “Surprised”, “Relieved”, “Relax” and “Curious”.
[Quote 06] Participant 6: “Outdoor use makes me feel relaxed and getting close to the nature.”
[Quote 07] Participant 2: “The idea that taking exercise by smartphones makes me surprised, because I never thought before.”
“The personal feelings about involvement” is the fifth type. Some participants accept the services involve in their life context; others prefer the ones that differ from habits.
[Quote 08] Participant 4: “The service offers the function matches my exercise habit is really contextual to me.”
[Quote 09] Participant 6: “The wellness service that is different from habits can help me improve my insufficient skills in the sport.”
Last but not least, the “Other” type instructs the ones that can’t be divided into any other groups.
[Quote 010] Participant 6: “Jogging outdoors brings me a period of silent time that is mental and relaxed.”
[Quote 11] Participant 4: “The service integrates diverse functionalities is helpful to me.”
[Quote 12] Participant 2: “The calories chart brought up by the wellness APPs make me experience getting slimmer and healthier, it’s real.”
[Quote 13] Participant 2: “Combine services with smartphones make wellness promotion easier and non-demanding to users.”
60
5.3 A design method with P-HVM
The proposed Hierarchical Value Map, P-HVM presented in the study shows designers what users really care before they begin designing. By referencing the related consequences, they can easily apply design factors to meet users’ value. The structure and guidelines for building it are discussed as follows.
5.3.1 The structure of the P-HVM
The structure of this study started with the attributes from existing wellness service cases, and then conducted interviews with laddering skill to get participants’
personal values. After getting the wide personal values, we restructure the HVM to combine the part of emotion, from wellness and wellness applications, with the part of function, from existing applications and wellness applications, and left attributes blank that let designers apply corresponding design factors into it in the design process. We call this a P-HVM (shown in Fig 5-2).
Fig 5-2 the structure of P-HVM Attributes
Designed by designers in the future
61 The structure from
this study The structure from
Leitner et al.’ study
The structure from Abeele and Zaman’s
study
According to previous studies, Leitner et al. (2008) conducted the same theory to identify users’ values toward multimedia from the existing attributes, as well as Abeele and Zaman (2009) attained users’ value and the satisfied attributes of video game controllers by starting laddering from the functional consequences presented by users. Both of them show that laddering helps designers understand how
concrete product attributes benefit personal values for end users (see Fig 5-3), but they can’t figure out the values that aren’t delivered by the products.
In our method, the study considers the multi-faceted values first, and links them to the feelings that can be provided by concrete product attributes, which make designers catch overall values of users, and won’t limited by a single product. The more comprehensive values we can get, the more relative feelings can be presented, and the more users’ needs can be found and be satisfied.
Fig 5-3 the comparison of the structures Attributes
62
5.3.2 The guidelines of conducting the process of HVM crossing
There are 5 steps in our method to attain the proposed HVM used for design.
The following are the guidelines (2 don’ts and 7 do’s) for application design by drawing from the method.
Fig 5-4 steps of conducting a P-HVM for design
step1. Cases preparing
Before conducting interviews, designers should prepare some existing cases from the field of target design as the attributes for laddering.
The cases should be diversified that can lead to wide-ranged values (Do’s - 1) To get the diverseness of personal values, designers shouldn’t limit the varieties of attributes. On the contrary, we should diversify the types of cases.
step2. Conducting interviews by laddering skill
There are three stages in the interview. In stage one, designers introduce the prepared cases that related to target product for participants. In stage two,
participants group the cases by their percept, and designers try to keep asking them to compare and explain the reasons of preference order to attain personal values.
Then, stage three, after the comparison; participants start to present their favorite applications on their phones. Similarly, designers repeat the same process of stage two to get the laddering of these applications.
Step 6.
63
Designers should prepare case cards to help introduce the cases (Do’s - 2)
There will be several cases introduced by designers. If there doesn’t have any tools help participants memorize the characteristics of these cases, they can’t do well on the stage of grouping and comparing. Thus, designers should prepare case cards with the pictures and main attributes on them.
Not every chain can end up in a value, but always give a try (Do’s - 3)
Sometimes participants can’t express their feelings very clearly, and sometimes they just refuse to open out due to the privacy. Designers should explain the aim of the research in the beginning to ensure participants’ privacy, and help them express themselves by changing the way of asking.
Don’t pre-set the type of applications that presented by participants (Don’ts – 1) Designers can’t forecast the applications that participants want to present, there always have some surprising findings through the interview, and it can be an opportunity for your design. So don’t expect and pre-set the type according to the product you are designing for.
Encourage participants share the negative feelings about the applications (Do’s - 3) There are few negative feelings expressed in the stage of presenting the applications on participants’ phones. They always focused on how much they love the application, and ignore that it still has some weak points can related to negative consequences.
So, don’t forget to lead them to share shortcomings actively.
64
step3. Sorting consequences by Affinity diagram
After conducting interviews, designers should take actions on integrating consequences before laddering.
To do the Affinity diagram to systematize all the feelings (Do’s - 4)
Designers will get a lot of consequences from interviews. The best way to systematize these feelings is to do the Affinity diagram, which sorts the feelings by considering their meanings, and picks one from a group as the representative for the next step.
Sometimes, if there are too many kinds of values in similarity, we do the sorting for them too.
Too many layers of consequences bring complexity to the study (Don’ts - 2)
After sorting all the feelings, designers should consider how many layers it will have in a ladder. We suggest applying two layers for functional consequences and
emotional consequences are the best.
Instead of the suggestion of six levels in the means-end chain from Walker and Olson’s (see Table 2-1), we combine abstract attributes and functional attributes into the layer of functional consequences, which represents the feelings that provided by products, and extract psychological consequence and instrumental value as the layer of emotional consequences to present feelings related to users’ percept. For the reason that you need to restructure the massive resources from two different HVMs in the next step, two layers for consequences is a preferred and easier structure.
Step 4. Crossing the HVMs
Designers should deal with three HVMs from different subjects in the process of attaining proposed HVM, P-HVM, for application design. One is from the field that
65
you are designing for; in this case, it’s the HVM of wellness from the wellness service cases we prepared. The second one is from the applications you aim to, for example, we picked two existing wellness applications in this study. The last one is the HVM of applications that participants shared during interviews (see Fig 5-5). At the same time, you can also build a set of negative HVMs as reference for design.
Fig 5-5 the process of HVMs crossing
Crossing the HVMs by emotional consequences (Do’s - 5)
Since the functional and emotional purposes presented in chapter 3, designers should extract the part of “Emotional consequences -> Values” of HVMs, which belong to the aimed field cases and applications, and extract the part of “Functional consequences -> Emotional consequences” of HVMs, from applications presented by participants and the applications of aimed field designers prepared. In addition, use the emotional consequences repeatedly show up in both extractions as key nodes to combine two parts together as a P-HVM for design (see Fig 5-5).
Attributes of the field you design for
Functional Consequences
Emotional Consequences
Values in the field
Attributes of other
Values in the APPs
Attributes of the
Values in the field
Functional Consequences
Emotional Consequences
Values in the field
Wellness HVM
APPs HVM Wellness APPs
HVM P-HVM
66
The matrix is a suggested way to present a consolidated HVM (Do’s - 6)
In fact, after the consolidation, the P-HVM will be very complex, which is too hard to read by other designers who didn’t participate in the research stage but join in the design progress. Thus, integrate HVMs into the matrix (see Appendix C) and extract the part designers concern about to build a P-HVM in a small scale is the clearer way to present important information.
Step 5. Arranging the quantitative survey
There will be several routes to reach a single value or a consequence. The situation makes designers confused that which one is the more important way to attain users’ values. Hence, we suggest delivering the questionnaire based on the routes of P-HVM to get the weights on it when designers need to make choices from these options (see Appendix D).
Give the rights for participants to skip the question (Do’s - 7)
The questionnaire will be a little hard for some participants. Because the design of the questionnaire is based on the participants’ output from interviews, but most of the participants who answering the questionnaire aren’t in the same context with the formers. Thus, it’s predictable that they will feel confused toward some questions, and we should serve them rights to skip it, and also prevent the invalid data.
Step 6. Conducting workshop or brainstorming
After building up the P-HVM designer can arrange the workshop or
brainstorming to deliver the corresponding design factors that match the design specification that functional consequences offer.
67
5.4 How to use the P-HVM for design
According to the instruction of building a P-HVM in 5.3, designers now need to move to the next step, applying it. The study presents how a designer uses the HVM for designing in this section.
When designers set the target users they are designing for, and establish the user studies to realize them and their personal values, but still can’t figure out what kinds of design strategies can be referenced. In that way, designers can apply the P-HVM to help design according their demands.
The following is a persona based on the type of target users of wellness services in the other project, The Innovative Design of Wellness Services, we’ve worked on.
We want to deliver the wellness service design that meets the values from our target users.
5.4.1 Setting the research subjects
LIFE STYLE
Hi, I’m Jessica, an office worker.
I’m an Iphone user. I use my phone to take pictures, play games and browse friends’ update on Facebook.
I really care about my figure that I want to keep slim and healthy, but, I enjoy delicious fare, and I don’t have regular exercise habits. I had joined the gym, and
bought a lot of fitness instruction DVD, but I always feel lazy to take exercise and make excuse to quit.
Jessica Cheng age 27
NEED
I need a strong motivation to conquer laziness and give rise to the interest of taking exercise.
Table 5-2 persona of target users
68
Since Jessica doesn’t involve in physical activities very much, her most important value is pursuing a strong motivation to do exercises. According to the values in the wellness we’ve worked on, we suggest to apply the P-HVM of “Strong motivation” (see Fig 5-6).
Fig 5-6 the P-HVM of value “Strong motivation to do something”
According to the P-HVM, it tells that the emotional consequences “Attractive”,
“Accompanied” and “inspired” are the direct influential feelings to attain motivation.
The functional consequences “Various” and “Fun” are important to get the feeling
“Attractive” and “Interactive”, in addition the feeling “Interactive” is related with
“Noticeable”, “Fancy” and “Corresponding” too; the feeling “Sharing” is affected by
“Cost-effective” and “General”, both of them point to the feeling “Accompanied” and also further to “Inspired”.
69
Since we have the information of the relationship between Jessica’s personal value and the relative feelings, now we can try to map the corresponding attributes as design factors. Here, the study used the design factors for wellness technologies suggested by Ahtinen et al. (2008) to map with the P-HVM, shown in Table 5-5.
Consequences related to motivation Ahtinen et al. design factors (2008)
Fast Prompts and Alarms
On the go Prompts and Alarms
Fun Wellness games
Interactive Comparison, Peer pressure, Social support Accompanied Comparison, Peer pressure, Social support
Sharing Comparison, Peer pressure, Social support
Inspired Comparison, Peer pressure, Social support
Table 5-3 the corresponding design factors
“Fast” and “On the go” apply the design factors “Prompts” and “Alarms”. The consequence “Fun” can be transfer to “Wellness games”. Moreover, the
consequences “Interactive”,” Accompanied”,” Sharing” and “Inspired” can be flavored with “Comparison”, ”Peer pressure” and “Social support”.
Through these design factors, designers can provide a wellness service that resembles wellness game, which can compete with friends. In addition, prompt the reminder based on users’ exercise habits to remind physical activities can be a way to encourage people who are like Jessica to get involved in healthy living style, and increase their motivation to taking exercise.
5.5 Summary
In this chapter, the study brings up the discussion about the values in the wellness; we conclude them into four groups, which also support the claims in the preceding chapters. Apart from this, the guideline about conducting the whole
70
process includes HVM crossing and the proposed HVM, P-HVM, are delivered to help designs in the related fields. Finally, the study uses a design problem as the example to direct the application of P-HVM.
71
Chapter 6
Conclusion
Through the process of conducting interviews, integrating consequences and values from participants, the study deliver the P-HVM with crossed structure, which not only contributes to attain users’ value in the wellness, it can also be extended to other domain of application design. At the end of thesis, this study concludes with findings, limitations and future works.
6.1 Conclusion and Contribution
As stated in chapter 1, the primary goal of this research is to get users’ values and the corresponding design factors through a systematic process. The results are delivered match with three objectives previously.
A. The four types of 17 values in the wellness are noted
Through the interviews and affinity diagram, we found the four types of values,
“The gradual progress in the wellness”, “The efficiency in the wellness”, “The motivation can lead to better performance in the wellness” and “The quality in the wellness”, include 17 personal values that affect users when they are coping with physical activities. They need motivation to involve in the field, and pursue progress and efficiency in the period; also, the participants who are economic independent pursue quality of related facilities. The values are given from multi-faceted aspects, which comprehend different sides of wellness.
Designers can apply these findings into design to meet general users’ attitudes
72
and needs in the wellness, such as wellness APPs and activities. In addition, the researcher in the field of wellness promotion, the fitness coaches and PE teachers can also employ the result to take corresponding strategies to encourage people involve in physical activities or planning for further research.
B. The related feelings suggested as design factors in the wellness are carried out By adopting the crossed structure of combining the parts of HVMs from different subjects, the types of functional consequences, “The first impression on the service”,
“The personal feelings about choices the services offer”, “The personal feelings about functions the services offer”, “The personal feelings about efficiency”, “The personal feelings about occasions” and “The relations with exercises”, as well as the types of emotional consequences, “The personal feelings about sociability”, “The personal feelings about merit”, “The personal feelings about efforts”, “The personal feelings toward the service” and “The personal feelings about involvement” are proposed as design opportunities to carry out the wellness applications that meet users’ values.
Moreover, researchers and designers in any field can also apply the relations between these two kinds of consequences as reference for designs or researches. If they want to provide a design with themes related to our emotional consequences, they can reference the linked functional consequences as design factors. On the contrary, if they want to figure out the product with certain function can lead to what kind of emotions, they can route to the emotional consequences begin with functional consequences.
73
C. A comprehensive approach for value-based design is proposed
The whole process that delivers the target values by laddering and transforms the design factors from existing welcomed products into new design opportunities is not limited in the field of wellness applications. Designers can adopt it to different topics of design, especially in a new field that hasn’t build up users’ values and diversified design elements yet.
By referencing the methodology and guidelines in Chapter 5, designers can select a best way to deal with the values according to the users and assure the outcomes may be targeted.
6.2 Research Limitations
In this research, we found there are several limitations of building a Crossing HVM. On the stage of Affinity diagram, for the reason that consequences are really subjective, there will be so many different rules on grouping and sorting depend on deferent thinking logic, thus we haven’t delivered standardization, and there will be some deviation of the utilization between different designers.
Also, on the stage of quantitative survey, there are so many linkages between all elements, although we just pick the ones in the situation of multiple linkages point to
Also, on the stage of quantitative survey, there are so many linkages between all elements, although we just pick the ones in the situation of multiple linkages point to