Design framework · 2018
Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs) in Mobile Health: Key Components and Design Principles for Ongoing Health Behavior Support
Nahum-Shani I, Smith SN, Spring BJ, Collins LM, Witkiewitz K, Tewari A, Murphy SA
What it found
Lays out how to build support that adapts to a person's changing state: decision points, the information that tailors each decision, the options available, and explicit rules that link them. A person's ability to take in help changes quickly, so the right amount of support at one moment can be too much at the next, and giving nothing is one of the designed options.
Where the evidence stops
A design framework built from health-behaviour research. It gives a vocabulary and principles, not a tested rule, threshold or schedule for any particular app or population.
How it shapes Pursue
The backbone of Pursue's decision model: every moment is a decision point, and staying quiet is a real choice rather than a failure.
A design input, not evidence that Pursue works.
Cited in
- 01When is the right moment for a reminder or a nudge?When the person is able to take it in, which changes from moment to moment. In a trial with 1,255 users of a workplace well-being app (Bidargaddi et al., 2018), the same message made people about 4% more likely to use the app in the next day, and about 12% more likely at 12:30 on weekends.Timing and receptivity
- 02When is it better for an AI assistant to say nothing?Whenever speaking would cost more attention than it gives back: when the person can't take it in, the evidence is thin, or nothing needs to change. The 2018 framework for just-in-time support (Nahum-Shani et al.) counts giving nothing as a designed option, and declining uncertain cases makes a system's other answers more reliable (Geifman and El-Yaniv, 2017).Timing and receptivity
- 03Is there an app that notices when my day is slipping and suggests one next step?Tre-Up, an iOS app in development, is being built for exactly that, and it is not released yet: its AI, Pursue, is designed to notice when your focus or energy shifts and to answer with one small next step, one question, or nothing. Until it ships, your phone's focus modes and scheduled notification summaries cover part of the job.Timing and receptivity