Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

VeggieWarsA conceptual design by

James Mao

Design ChallengeTo create a BluePath behavior for eating more vegetables

in 5 people.

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

VeggieWars

Persuasive Purpose To create a BluePath behavior for eating more vegetables in 5

people.

Industrial Design A simple website that shows current player rankings, vegetable

details, and how to maximize score.

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

User Description

• Heavy social gamers• Competitive – desire to win, even if that means

eating yucky vegetables• Interested in trying something new

• Owns mobile phone• With camera• With data plan

• Has discretion in what to eat• Access to cafeteria• Primary shopper/cook at home

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Vegetable Eating Competition

After food arrives, he takes an image and emails it to VeggieWars.

VeggieWars game masters verify the image and credits Michael the appropriate points.

After breakfast, Michael checks the VeggieWars scoreboard to see the latest rankings.

He notes the latest challenge vegetables as well as the vegetables that have not been eaten.

It’s lunch time, and Michael picks a menu item to help him score the most points.

VeggieWars ranking are updated.

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Prototype of VeggieWars

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Features/Functionality

• Users earn points by eating a whole serving of a vegetable

• Before eating, users submit picture via cell phone camera

• User gets• +1 for eating a serving of a vegetable• +5 for being the first to eat a vegetable• +3-10 for eating the current challenge vegetable

• Vegetable challenge (optional)• Any user can challenge any other user to a duel• Both users choose a vegetable for the other user• If one user completes a serving, the other user has

12 hours to eat their vegetable to tie.• +10 for the winner/-10 for the loser

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Theoretical Justifications

• Motivation• Social acceptance – wanting to fit in and not be left

behind• Competitive drive of users to win (may augment with

prize)• Hot Trigger

• Notification (sometimes) sent around meal time with a vegetable to try

• E.g., the current challenge vegetable is Garlic, first to eat a serving gets +8 points

• Cold Trigger• Notification when others overtake you on

scoreboard

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Results of User Testing

• Ideas is partially scalable• Game mechanics may not work with a lot of users

(especially if they do not know each other)• Lots of time to verify compliance

• Cheating may be a problem• During quick testing, internet photos were sent

• Fun to play

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Shortcomings of Design

• Time consuming to enter user data (from their photos)

• Hard to tell whether users are cheating• Are they actually eating the dishes photographed?• Are they actually photographing their meals?

• Game mechanics may not work• Nutritional value of vegetables are not equal• Different vegetables have different difficulty• Too complicated if we use different scores for each

vegetable• Vegetable overdose?

• Are we responsible if someone goes overboard?

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Expansion - What else is possible?

• Automatically capture data• Tie into dining plan or credit card and automatically

register servings of vegetables• Allow users to setup instances of this game with

their friends• Make it easy for living groups to start this game for a

couple weeks

• Add badges• In addition to score, let users have special

commendation for performing extreme tasks (e.g., 5 servings of Garlic)

Stanford University, Spring 2010CS377v - Creating Health Habitshabits.stanford.edu

Next Steps in Design Process

• Build a score board• Find some friends willing to try game for a while• Add nutritional information, recipes link from

score board• Launch game• Come up with interesting events for players

• E.g., “It’s Garlic season. Next 3 users to eat a serving of Garlic gets +4 points.”