Digital Behavior Change Intervention Designs for Habit Formation: Systematic Review
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Abstract
Background: With the development of emerging technologies, digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) help to maintain regular physical activity in daily life. Objective: To comprehensively understand the design implementations of habit formation techniques in current DBCIs, a systematic review was conducted to investigate the implementations of behavior change techniques, types of habit formation techniques, and design strategies in current DBCIs. Methods: The process of this review followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. A total of 4 databases were systematically searched from 2012 to 2022, which included Web of Science, Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and PubMed. The inclusion criteria encompassed studies that used digital tools for physical activity, examined behavior change intervention techniques, and were written in English. Results: A total of 41 identified research articles were included in this review. The results show that the most applied behavior change techniques were the self-monitoring of behavior, goal setting, and prompts and cues. Moreover, habit formation techniques were identified and developed based on intentions, cues, and positive reinforcement. Commonly used methods included automatic monitoring, descriptive feedback, general guidelines, self-set goals, time-based cues, and virtual rewards. Conclusions: A total of 32 commonly design strategies of habit formation techniques were summarized and mapped to the proposed conceptual framework, which was categorized into target-mediated (generalization and personalization) and technology-mediated interactions (explicitness and implicitness). Most of the existing studies use the explicit interaction, aligning with the personalized habit formation techniques in the design strategies of DBCIs. However, implicit interaction design strategies are lacking in the reviewed studies. The proposed conceptual framework and potential solutions can serve as guidelines for designing strategies aimed at habit formation within DBCIs.
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“On the other hand, limited studies have investigated how to design DBCI solutions using characteristics of these technologies, such as context awareness and inferring personal requirements [20,27].”
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Enhancing Financial Literacy in Young Adults: An Android-Based Personal Finance Management Tool
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- Authors
- Zhu, Y., Long, Y., Wang, H., Lee, K. P., Zhang, L., & Wang, S. J.
- Affiliations
- Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Stephen Jia
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2024-05-24
- Volume
- 26
- Pages
- e54375
- ISSN
- 1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11161714
- OpenAlex
- W4398776131
- Cited by
- 84
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 59 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 4
- FWCI
- 4.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PolyU Institutional Research Archive (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- digital behaviour change interventions, habit formation, physical activity, behaviour change techniques, self-monitoring, goal setting, prompts and cues, positive reinforcement, conceptual framework, personalized interaction, virtual rewards, descriptive feedback
- MeSH terms
- Behavior Therapy, Habits, Humans, Health Behavior, Exercise
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