Sprout is an investigation into how to encourage students to take breaks prevent prolonged sitting. People who sit still for prolonged periods of time have a higher risk of disease than those who move a muscle at regular intervals in a non-exercise manner. Students are particularly susceptible because they sit for long periods of time in and out of class.
Using a survey, journals,
and interviews, we found
that students sit for up to
half of each day, both in
and out of class.
Most products and services currently in the market do
not address the need of taking short breaks to prevent disease.
After an ideation session,
our team settled on 17 concepts to test with fellow students to validate our findings. This testing confirmed that our service needed to be non-invasive, educational, social and also promote awareness.
Sprout is a service that would be offered by a university to its students. It makes behavior visible through personalized plants that grow, tracking students’ sitting behaviors over time; and glow to remind students to take breaks during long periods of sitting. Using a tracking site linked to students’ accounts, students can set goals, visualize their habits over time, compare themselves to others, get tips about break activities, and learn about the benefits of taking breaks.
This journey map shows how a new student user would use Sprout as a non-invasive reminder to take short breaks when working. Sprout helps students understand that taking breaks can increase their productivity and reduce their risks for long-term health issues.
TEAM
Tony Poor, BS CS 2011, MCHI 2011
Ruqian Zhou, MPD 2009, MDes IxD 2011
Duration: 5 weeks
CONTRIBUTION
project framing and definition, survey development & execution, journal development, directed storytelling, research synthesis, concept development, need validation, persona development, scenario, presentation
Carnegie Mellon University
Designing for Service
Miso Kim, Instructor
School of Design
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Presentation (7.3MB)
