Romadoro: Leveraging Nudge Techniques to Encourage Break-Taking

Abstract

Excessive screen-Time has negative impacts on mental and physical well-being, and taking breaks is important to keeping creativity, interest, and productivity high. We developed Romadoro, a Chrome extension that uses the Pomodoro Technique and technology-mediated nudges to promote better break-Taking practices. Nudges involve designing choices to predictably alter the behavior of users. To test the effectiveness of using technology mediated nudges together with the Pomodoro Technique on break-Taking, we conducted a mixed design user study with 36 participants. The findings from our study indicate that nudge techniques have a significant impact on motivating users to take breaks. Our work demonstrates potential avenues for designing time-management apps that could be more beneficial to the users than the classic Pomodoro approach.