Designing feedback: multimodality and specificity

Now that many of us carry around devices that are equipped with sensors (e.g., smartphones with accelerometers) we can use these sensors to measure behavior. The data thus captured can be used to give someone feedback about this behavior. These feedback mechanisms are often used in so called smart coaches, a growing group of product-service systems within the domain of persuasive technology. Despite decades of research on persuasive systems, challenges remain for designers of feedback systems. Little is known about how to design feedback in such a way that it is most effective in motivating people to change their behavior. In this paper, we give a categorization of feedback systems based on the modality that the feedback is offered in and on the specificity of the feedback. We discuss under what circumstances the different types of feedback may be most effective considering the context a feedback system is used in and the goals that users of the system have. Finally, we discuss future research on feedback systems aimed at find more specific design guidelines for feedback systems that apply to persuasive technology in different situations.