Challenge: How does a voice assistant situated in the home of the user, facilitate smoking cessation using mindfulness, compared to an equivalent smartphone application?
- Timeline: 10th Semester, 2021
- Type/Setting: School Project, Masters Thesis
- Team: Stefan Bjerregaard, Simon Bak Kjærulff, Tummas Jóhan Sigvardsen
- Supervisor: Eleftherios Papachristos, Niels van Berkel
- Tools: Natural Language Interaction, Google Cloud Console
Abstract
There is an increased interest to employ technology to help individuals combat mental health issues. With the rise of personal voice assistants, the field of HCI is facing new challenges in how to utilize these effectively in different contexts. We set out to construct a novel design that meditates mindfulness techniques for smoking cessation. We report findings from a mixed study design with nine participants using one of the two variants of the application design during a month-long deployment. The purpose of the prototypes were to explore whether mindfulness for smoking cessation can be mediated through a voice assistant. In addition to this, the purpose was to explore the differences and similarities of how participants experienced mindfulness techniques, mediated through either a voice assistant on a smart speaker or on a mobile device, to provide insights for future development of similar applications. The paper presents quantitative data of prototype usage, measured mindfulness and measured smoking urges, as well as qualitative data of how the participants perceived mindfulness, smoking urges, their ongoing motivation to quit and their usage of the prototype. We conclude by presenting discussion points which provide further directions for researchers in the field of HCI.
Video
We made a short concept video, to explain our solution. See video below:
