Identifying a Motivational Profile for Older Adults Towards Increased Physical Activity

Personalizing behavior change (BC) strategies to motivate increased physical activity is especially important for the diverse older adult population. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how to profile older users to most effectively personalize BC solutions. Self-awareness and social awareness are BC strategies commonly used in commercially available applications to promote physical activities. Through a randomized controlled trial (N = 53), we studied the effect of some personal factors on the physical activity of older adults under these two strategies. For this purpose, each BC strategy was implemented in a mobile application. Based on the statistical analysis of the measured step data and the collected questionnaire data, we identified a list of personal factors to personalize each BC strategy towards improved physical activity. Hereby we suggest how to create effective motivational profiles and provide design recommendations to personalize these BC strategies toward increased physical activity for older users.