BEN'FIT: Design, Implementation and Evaluation of a Culture-Tailored Fitness App

Abstract

Physical inactivity has been recognized as one of the leading causes of non-communicable diseases and mortality globally. Though persuasive technology has been identified as a potential tool for tackling physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors, very little attention has been paid to investigating the effectiveness of culture-tailored interventions in the wild. To bridge this gap, we designed and implemented two versions of a fitness app we called BEN'FIT [personal version (PV) and social version (SV)] targeted at encouraging regular bodyweight exercise behavior on the home front. The PV and SV versions are targeted at users from individualist and collectivist cultures, respectively. In this paper, we describe the empirical findings that informed the design and implementation of both versions of the BEN'FIT app, their features and how we intend to evaluate them in a pilot field study among our target audience once we complete the implementation of the app.