VeggieWars - It’s like MafiaWars with vegetables. We explore whether it is possible to motivate people to eat vegetables through the use of game mechanisms. Eat a vegetable, get some points. Form a habit of vegetable eating, get rewarded with a healthy life. Vegetable Wars - It’s like Mafia Wars with vegetables.

1. VeggieWars – Results James Mao habits.stanford.edu

2. What is VeggieWars? A game to create a BluePath behavior of eating more vegetables in 5 people BluePath (see behaviorgrid.org) is an intervention targeted at restarting a known behavior for life Users send in reports of eating whole servings of vegetables via pictures and receive points Public scoreboard and automated triggers

3. What results did you get? Used Facebook applications (FarmVille!) to recruit ~20 users Over 7 days, 18 users participated at least once 4 users constantly competed for top ranking 3 users participated without really competing 64 servings of vegetables eaten

4. What do you think about the results? Pretty clear that there was at least temporary impact to vegetable eating Cheating was not detected EXIF data of images were automatically checked for inconsistencies (e.g. out of order timestamps, changes camera) Long term impact unclear – maybe people will discover a love for vegetables (hopefully, they didn’t get sick of veggies!)

5. What did you learn? Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity… If you can improve your simplicity, do that first Get user feedback but don’t use it directly – users don’t know the best way to fix problems USDA is doomed… Getting people to learning about vegetable serving size was incredibly painful and hurt simplicity

6. Lesson #1: Simplicity matters. Persuasion is based on three main factors: motivation, ability, and hot triggers Simplicity increases user ability We addressed this through: Smart score board – increased user engagement by helping them see what is happening in the game Strategy analyzer – we tell you how to improve your ranking in the way that is easiest for you

7. Smart Scoreboard Our original scoreboard showed a matrix of all the vegetables with all the users Too sparse – users felt like no one was participating Automatically hid empty columns and rows except for the “challenge” vegetables (or if you are the blank row) Added feature to show you users near you in ranking in a smaller table that is before the main rankings

8. Strategy Analyzer We send ideas on how to pass the next ranked user E.g., “You are one serving of Green Onion, our challenge vegetable, from taking #1 position.” Strategy was sent as close to meal time as possible – time was algorithmically calculated based on past user history Combination simplicity and hot triggering!

9. Lesson #2: Teaching and persuasion don’t mix well. Very difficult to explain the concept of a serving USDA says: 1 serving equals “1/2 cup, but 1 cup for raw leafy vegetables and ¾ cup for vegetable juice” Users consistently misreported servings – errors occurred both ways! People under counted pure vegetable dishes (often 2-3 servings) People over counted garnishes (like peas in pasta)

10. How did we deal with the servings problem? Teaching serving sizes just was not working out well – users were consistently confused Instead of asking users to tell us how many servings, we looked up the recipe for dishes and calculated servings Added automated serving size clarification in our Strategy Analyzer E.g., “You can wipe out the competition with a serving of Garlic. This is likely achievable only at the Stinking Rose in San Francisco. Click here to reserve on OpenTable.”

11. Summary We constantly improved our simplicity By converting user desires (get 5 more points) to specific actions (eat this, or eat that more often) By showing users where they stand in a way they understand Improved triggering comes as a result of targeting simplicity Users hated hot triggers unless they made the experience simpler