SedVis: Supporting Sedentary Behavior Change by Visualizing Personal Mobility Patterns and Action Planning on Smartphone
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Prolonged sedentary behavior is related to a number of risk factors for chronic diseases. Given the high prevalence of sedentary behavior in daily life, light-weight solutions for behavior change are needed to avoid detrimental health effects. The mobile app SedVis was developed based on the Health Action Process Approach. The app provides personal mobility pattern visualization (for both physical activity and sedentary behavior) and action planning for sedentary behavior change. The primary aim of the study was to investigate the effect of mobility visualization on users' action planning for changing their sedentary behavior. The secondary aim was to evaluate user engagement with the visualization and user experience of the app. A three-week pilot study was conducted with 16 participants who had the motivation to reduce their sedentary behavior. The results showed that the visualizations in SedVis had no statistically significant effect on the participants' action planning. The intervention involving the visualizations and action planning in SedVis had a positive effect on reducing participants' sedentary hours with weak evidence (mean -0.40, SD 0.63), while the active control condition did not decrease sedentary time (mean 0.17, SD 1.65). The results also suggested that the more frequently the users checked the app, the more they might reduce their sedentary behavior; however, this finding did not reach statistical significance. The visualizations in the app also led to higher user-perceived novelty. No participant complained about the interruption, while some participants commented that making action plans every day was boring. Using a smartphone app to collect mobility data and provide feedback in real-time using visualizations might be a promising method to induce changes in sedentary behavior and might be more effective than action planning alone.
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