UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The importance of color choice is all around us. For example, red often has an aggressive or negative connotation -- think of stoplights, red ink, and danger signs. Green, on the other hand, is often associated with go -- i.e. green trafficlights and signs in western societies. Researchers at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology(IST) recently studied how color choice for exercise progress bars in health apps and devices influences users’ beliefs in their abilities to reach their health-related goals. Their results suggest that color choice can be a motivator for app users -- depending on how far they are from reaching their goals and how sincere they perceive the feedback to be.
"This is the first step to understand how the design of progress bars in fitness apps impacts users," said Elizabeth Eikey, a doctoral candidate at the College of IST.
Eikey is the lead author of a paper that explores information presentation in health apps that was presented at the iConference 2015 that was held March 24-27 in Newport Beach, Calif. The paper was co-written by Erika Poole, an assistant professor of IST, and Madhu Reddy, formerly an associate professor at the College of IST and currently a professor of communication studies at Northwestern University.
Health and fitness apps and other health devices are becoming increasingly popular, according to the researchers. To allow users to gauge their progress, those apps and devices often show feedback in the form of graphs and other visualizations that help users see how close they are to reaching their milestones. However, few studies have looked at how the presentation of this information affects users.
Eikey, Poole, and Reddy conducted an online experiment and survey to explore how manipulating color of an exercise progress bar and distance to goal influences users’ confidence in completing 10,000 steps today and in the future. In this preliminary study, the researchers aimed to better understand how color choice, distance to goal, weight perception, and interest in completing an exercise goal affect users’ beliefs about their abilities by simulating health app exercise progress bars. The research is important, Eikey said, because how people view themselves may impact their ability or beliefs in their abilities to achieve health goals, such as exercising, healthy diet, and weight loss.
"We want to increase the chances of successful behavior change," Eikey said. "Perhaps one way we can create sustained engagement is by making good design choices."
They discovered that for accomplishing today’s health goal, users who rate themselves as at a healthy weight are more likely to believe they will accomplish their fitness goals. Interestingly, Eikey said, users that perceived themselves as overweight reported positive feelings about accomplishing future goals.
The researchers also discovered that varying color choices may impact users’ beliefs in their ability to accomplish future goals at different distances to their goals today. To promote confidence in achieving future goals, Eikey said, it may be best to frame the information more neutrally (for instance, with a black progress bar) when users are farther from reaching their goal today. When users are closer to reaching their goal today, it may be best to frame the feedback positively (for example, with a green progress bar).
Another challenge, Eikey said, is providing feedback that motivates users but is also sincere based on their progress.
"If users do not feel the feedback is sincere, we may unintentionally lower their belief in their abilities to reach their goal," she said. "For instance, users who were given a green progress bar but were only at 2,500 steps completed may have felt the feedback was not accurate based on their goal and thus, may have felt less confident in their ability to reach their goal today."
While understanding how to present feedback in fitness devices is useful, Eikey said, fitness apps only represent a portion of the health apps available. Future research will focus on studying feedback in other technologies, such as calorie counting and weight loss apps. Additionally, they plan to conduct more studies that examine the impact of weight and body perception as well as interest in completing health goals.
"We may be able to cater design to specific audiences to help them reach their health goals," Eikey said.