This theme focuses on the current emphasis on qualitative goals, its benefits, as well as limitations. It also aims to explore novel design approaches to elicit qualitative goals, and design opportunities to support such qualitative goals, and their breakdown in quantitative subgoals. For instance, as highlighted by recent works we may leverage approaches and methods from goal-oriented work in therapeutic practices such as motivational interview or Personal Project Analysis whose use in HCI has started to be explored.

This theme targets the current emphasis on easily trackable behavioral measures of quantitative goals such as step counts, and their limitations. It also aims to explore how these measures can be extended with other complementary, valid goal measures, both behavioral such as goal attainment measures of self-reported goal progress or goal completion, as well as non-behavioral measures targeting emotion, motivation, and attention aspects pertaining to goals. Here we can draw from instance from biosensors, less explored in technologies targeting goals for behavior change but increasingly used for wellbeing, affective health or mindfulness.

This theme explores the challenge of personal informatics and behavior change technologies usually targeting goals with limited consideration of users’ intrinsic motivation for such goals. The latter, is however key for ensuring engagement in goal pursuit. This theme will thus explore how to better account for users’ intrinsic goals, by supporting awareness of such intrinsic goals and how they may be prioritized.

While goals can motivate and guide behavior, there is increasing recognition that certain approaches to goal setting may inadvertently coerce individuals into particular modes of conduct, thereby exacerbating the risks associated with persuasive technology. Persuasive technologies often focus on quantifiable and performance-based metrics, which can narrow users’ vision of what counts as progress or success, and potentially reinforce normative expectations around behavior change. This is particularly problematic when goals become disconnected from users’ own values or circumstances, leading to reduced agency and increased pressure to conform to externally dictated standards. The theme will explore how we can develop a systematic critical approach to goal setting, focusing on the importance of user-specific, context-sensitive, and inclusive goals.

This theme focuses on the current emphasis on single-domain goals and how this may be extended through interfaces supporting a broader range of goals across different domains, from which users could prioritize the ones they are intrinsically motivated to pursue. Such domains can include for instance not only health, nutrition or wellbeing, but also work, learning, relationships or personal finance. This theme also aims to extend the predominant focus on individual goals towards social goals pursued with other such as physical activity, or sustainability goals within communities.

This theme focuses on the theoretical gap of intervention-based interventions for behavior change. As a recent systematic review has shown, most effective interventions have strong theoretical grounding, and most work in this space mention theories. However, less half of the papers of the review use theories to inform design of interventions. This theme will explore how the community could support more thorough application of key theories, and their operationalization to facilitate designers’ understanding of their potential value in design, and engagement with them.