Social stairs: taking the piano staircase towards long-term behavioral change

  • Authors:

  • Michel Peeters;Carl Megens;Elise van den Hoven;Caroline Hummels;Aarnout Brombacher

  • Affiliations:

  • Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands;Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands;Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands;Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands;Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

  • Venue:
  • PERSUASIVE'13 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Persuasive Technology
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

This paper addresses the development of Social Stairs, an intelligent musical staircase to change people's behavior in the long-term to take the stairs in favor of the elevator. Through designing with the Experiential Design Landscape (EDL) method, a design opportunity was found that social engagement encouraged people to take the stairs at work in favor of the elevator. To encourage this social behavior, people who involved each other and worked together whilst using the Social Stairs were treated with more diverse orchestral chimes that echoed up the stairwell. In this paper we reflect on the differences between the persuasive system of the well-known Piano Staircase and the Social Stairs. We report on the deployment of the Social Stairs for a period of three weeks in the public space within the university community and identify opportunities for triggering intrinsic motivation, social engagement and how to keep people involved in the long-term.