A Smartphone App to Support Sedentary Behavior Change by Visualizing Personal Mobility Patterns and Action Planning (SedVis): Development and Pilot Study

BACKGROUND: Prolonged sedentary behavior is related to a number of risk factors for chronic diseases. Given the high prevalence of sedentary behavior in daily life, simple yet practical solutions for behavior change are needed to avoid detrimental health effects. OBJECTIVE: The mobile app SedVis was developed based on the health action process approach. The app provides personal mobility pattern visualization (for both physical activity and sedentary behavior) and action planning for sedentary behavior change. The primary aim of the study is to investigate the effect of mobility pattern visualization on users’ action planning for changing their sedentary behavior. The secondary aim is to evaluate user engagement with the visualization and user experience of the app. METHODS: A 3-week user study was conducted with 16 participants who had the motivation to reduce their sedentary behavior. Participants were allocated to either an active control group (n=8) or an intervention group (n=8). In the 1-week baseline period, none of the participants had access to the functions in the app. In the following 2-week intervention period, only the intervention group was given access to the visualizations, whereas both groups were asked to make action plans every day and reduce their sedentary behavior. Participants’ sedentary behavior was estimated based on the sensor data of their smartphones, and their action plans and interaction with the app were also recorded by the app. Participants’ intention to change their sedentary behavior and user experience of the app were assessed using questionnaires. RESULTS: The data were analyzed using both traditional null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and Bayesian statistics. The results suggested that the visualizations in SedVis had no effect on the participants’ action planning according to both the NHST and Bayesian statistics. The intervention involving visualizations and action planning in SedVis had a positive effect on reducing participants’ sedentary hours, with weak evidence according to Bayesian statistics (Bayes factor, BF(+0)=1.92; median 0.52; 95% CI 0.04-1.25), whereas no change in sedentary time was more likely in the active control condition (BF(+0)=0.28; median 0.18; 95% CI 0.01-0.64). Furthermore, Bayesian analysis weakly suggested that the more frequently the users checked the app, the more likely they were to reduce their sedentary behavior (BF(−0)=1.49; r=−0.50). CONCLUSIONS: Using a smartphone app to collect data on users’ mobility patterns and provide real-time feedback using visualizations may be a promising method to induce changes in sedentary behavior and may be more effective than action planning alone. Replications with larger samples are needed to confirm these findings.