Designing for the Moment: How One-Minute Interventions Fit or Falter Across Domains

2026-05-27

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of designing lightweight digital interventions that can prompt action among low-motivation users within one minute, without requiring registration or sensing. Grounded in the Fogg Behavior Model and four design principles, the work proposes just-in-time micro-interventions targeting physical activity, healthy eating, and mental well-being. A novel mechanism enables users to collaboratively rewrite intervention prompts, facilitating “intentional personalization”—enhancing relevance while maintaining minimal friction. A 14-day field study (N=22) demonstrates that user-rewritten prompts significantly increase both acceptance and willingness to act, thereby validating co-creation as a viable lightweight strategy for effective personalization in behavioral interventions.

Abstract

This paper explores the design space for one-minute digital interventions that prompt immediate action without onboarding or sensing. By embracing Fogg's Behavior Model and four design principles informed by literature, the goal of these interventions was to provide triggers that encourage actions so simple that even people with low motivation would be willing to complete them. We examined the utility of these prompts by conducting a 14-day study with 22 participants interested in making small lifestyle improvements in at least one of three domains: physical activity, healthy eating, and mental well-being. When combined with insights drawn from participants' rewrites of our prompts, our findings suggest that intentional personalization through co-authorship could be a lightweight personalization mechanism that balances relevance with low friction.

Problem

• one-minute interventions
• digital prompts
• behavior change
• personalization
• low-friction design

Innovation

• one-minute interventions
• behavioral triggers
• lightweight personalization
• co-authorship
• Fogg's Behavior Model