User Preferences in Occupational Sedentary Behaviour Digital Interventions: Design and Evaluation of a Low-Intrusive Software Tool

Abstract

Occupational sedentariness has been recognized as a public health issue as the workforce is increasingly employed in low activity jobs. Supporting the employees with digital tools that increase awareness of occupational sedentary behaviour can potentially change behaviour and reduce the negative health effects. However, such tools are only effective if they are widely accepted and perceived as minimally intrusive. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a StandUp! Dashboard that summarizes sedentary data from pervasive computing sources and is shown each time a new tab is opened on the web browser. This way the StandUp! Dashboard becomes a low intrusive software tool to increase awareness of occupational sedentariness. Three-phased design iterations with focus groups were used to finalize the StandUp! Dashboard design. The software was evaluated via two-fold study, combining a larger-scale survey and a pilot study. The findings show high user acceptance for such a software tool in the workplace, and define a prioritized set of features the tool should support but also user concerns that must be addressed for wider adoption.