Colours that move you: Persuasive ambient activity displays

Regular physical activity is essential for maintaining good health. Unfortunately due to the increasingly sedentary nature of modern life many people are not active enough. Although most have the ability to be more active they lack sufficient motivation. Persuasive technology could help to address this problem. We discuss the use of persuasive ambient displays, specifically wearable ambient displays, to motivate users to be more active. We show that it is critical to carefully consider how best to visualise data with a display in order to realise maximum persuasive effect. We present as a case study our ongoing design and development of ActivMON, a wearable persuasive ambient display.