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Read the White House press release here
HopeLab's CEO with trial user at White House press conference
Getting Tweens Moving
HopeLab
Scope: research, strategy, ideation, hardware/software prototyping, interaction design, industrial design, mechanical engineering, testing
Daylight’s complete strategy-to-reality program is helping HopeLab address childhood obesity by getting tweens moving. The early results: a 30% increase in tween physical activity and accolades from President Obama!
Watch a five-year-old tear around a house and it’s easy to see that staying physically active generally isn’t a problem for her. But around middle school, something changes. Tweens just want to hang out with friends now. Spend time online. Or play video games. Gym? Not so much.
What would motivate tweens to be more active?
That’s the big question non profit HopeLab asked Daylight to help them answer. It’s an important topic for America’s obesity challenge. Inspiring tweens to adopt healthy habits at this transition age can have sustained positive impact on their lives.
If you want to understand how to change tween behavior, there’s really only one way to do it—spend time in their world.
Daylight began by going out and spending meaningful time interviewing and observing tweens and their families in their homes. We connected with all types of tweens — from kids that had to stay home after school to care for siblings to tweens that were always running around to the ones who skip out on gym class completely. Understanding their needs, opinions, and feelings was key to uncovering actionable design opportunities.
We realized the best way to engage kids was to embrace, rather than avoid, their passion for connecting through technology.
A core part of our creative process is generating hundreds of different ideas and experiments. One experiment that showed promise was embracing rather than avoiding tween passion for online community and games. Daylight created an early concept visualization in which virtual rewards, online challenges and peer support all motivated tweens to get moving in the real world. A little physical monitor would help tweens track their activity and gain credits in the virtual world. Having grown out of the needs and desires of kids themselves, the concept resonated with tweens and their families.
Daylight turned early experiments into working products
Visions of the future became reality through Daylight’s iterative concept development process. Rigorous mechanical engineering, industrial design, and interaction design resulted in working products and web service in the hands of tweens across the country. We watched as tweens who usually skipped out on activity were now motivated by the challenges and social support and we’re getting out there.
The bottom line? 30% increase in activity!
Early results look very promising. Tweens using the product and service had a 30% increase in moderate to rigorous physical activity compared to control groups! That captured the attention of President Obama, who recently celebrated HopeLab and this program as a successful model of social innovation.
The electrical engineering component of the prototype was done by Denis Bohm. We hired computer science ninjas Uncommon Projects to help create the web application.