Designing social features for mobile and ubiquitous wellness applications

This paper presents research findings on designing social features for mobile wellness applications. The focus is on opportunities to support and motivate wellness by utilizing and enhancing social interaction between users. New knowledge is created using a 'Research through Design' process. The process combines findings of the user studies performed in India during the year 2008, existing research knowledge on mobile communication technology that provides social features to support wellness activities, and technological possibilities provided by the mobile devices available in the market at the time of the research. New design knowledge is presented in the format of design findings and concept descriptions, as well as concept evaluations. These can then be used by practitioners as inspirational material for product design, and by researchers for exploring the domain of wellness applications.