How am i doing?- Personifying health through animated characters

Abstract

In this paper we present an experimental study that investigates the effects of a Virtual Representation of Health (VRH) - an online virtual character that personifies an individual's health. Testing four different variations of the VRH, we aimed to understand which variation yields the strongest overall positive effect on triggering health behavior change. The results from data collected from 512 participants in three countries indicate that all tested variations can have a positive impact on health behavior change, and show that the 'richest' VRH variation, a virtual character that models health behavior using animations, juxtaposed by an animated personification of a possible future health, has the strongest overall positive effect, compared to the other tested variations. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.