Lightweight visual data analysis on mobile devices - Providing self-monitoring feedback

Self-monitoring is an important part of behavior intervention technologies. In order to increase the effectiveness of self-monitoring, we do not only have to track data but also give feedback to the user. In the interdisciplinary project SmartAct, we aim at developing and empirically testing the effectiveness of an open access toolbox for mobile, real-time interventions targeting healthy eating and physical activity. The SmartAct toolbox for behavior change is a set of tools for personal mobile technology which decreases the implementation barrier for mobile interventions. It consists of tools for physical activity tracking, food journaling, questionnaires, notifications, feedback and interventions, workflow management, data storage, and client-server synchronization. The toolbox is still under development, but a first reference implementation for a food diary application has already been tested in a pilot study. For the intervention tools an interactive visualization was designed which places special emphasis on context and imprecision aspects.