Persuasive Technologies Lab

Our goal is to develop interactive technologies that enable women, children, and low-literacy people in low- and middle-income countries to improve their ability and motivation to engage in behaviors that improve health, financial inclusion, and safe and responsible internet use.

Several factors influence the ability to change. These include personal characteristics such as knowledge, attitudes, and preferences, environmental characteristics like availability and distribution of resources, and social influences like family dynamics. The internet and smartphone ecosystems host vast information and resources that can enhance people’s capacity for behavior change. However, over 90% of these resources are available in only five languages, and the information is not always relevant to local contexts due to varying socio-cultural practices and environmental constraints.

About

We employ a design science approach to explore the best ways to use gamification, games, and artificial intelligence in:

Making online resources more accessible and useful for shaping knowledge, skills, and motivation for behavior change in the target populations
Designs of novel persuasive technologies that enable the target population to engage in behavior change

Our work falls into three thrusts:

Assessing the quality and usefulness of publicly available websites and applications for behavior change. In this thrust, we conduct a content and heuristic evaluation of applications that are free to download from major application stores. We use questionnaires like the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) and Norman’s 10 usability metrics, as well as frameworks like the Behavior Change Wheel to determine the overall scope, quality, and potential usefulness of the apps for the target population.
Understanding users’ and relevant stakeholders’ (family members, healthcare providers, etc.) requirements for digital interventions. In this thrust, we conduct qualitative and quantitative studies on the prevalence and causes of negative behaviors, barriers to adopting positive behaviors, and mental models on the roles interactive technologies should play in behavior change support. We include users and other stakeholders to understand the social dynamics that might impact behavior change and ensure that proposed technologies consider these in the design.
Designing and evaluating interactive technologies for behavior change support. We rapidly prototype and assess various application designs' usability and perceived usefulness in lab settings before developing and deploying applications for in-the-wild studies. We use usage patterns, user feedback, and observed behavioral changes to refine the designs for further design iterations.

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Principal investigator

Edith Luhanga

Assistant Research Professor, CMU-Africa

Edith Luhanga joined CMU-Africa as a postdoctoral researcher in June 2021 and transitioned to assistant research professor in September 2022. Prior to that, she was a lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Tanzania (NM-AIST). She holds a Ph.D. in information science from Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, an MSc in advanced computing science, and a BEng (Hons) in electronic and computer engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK.

Luhanga’s research focuses on designing theory-based behavior change systems that consider people’s personal and socio-cultural contexts, through a human-centered approach. Her main domains of interest are health (particularly nutrition, maternal and child health, and disabilities management), financial inclusion, and privacy and security

She was the deputy project leader for a 10-year project on capacity building through digital technologies at NM-AIST and served as Tanzania’s representative to the UNESCO intergovernmental committee on drafting recommendations on the ethics of artificial intelligence in 2021.

Luhanga served as a reviewer for JMIR, IEEE, and ACM journals and conferences, including JMIR Serious Games and the Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) and Computer-Human Interactions (CHI) conferences. I am also an associate guest editor on a special topic, "Designing and Evaluating Digital Health Interventions," under Frontiers Connected Health.

Email: eluhanga@andrew.cmu.edu

Google Scholar: Edith Luhanga

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Projects

Improving maternal prevention and management of antenatal complications

According to experts in obstetrics and gynecology in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), one of the top priorities for improved maternal health outcomes is improving pregnant women’s knowledge of antenatal danger signs. Question-answering chatbots can enable women to get quick and timely information on the severity of their symptoms and the prevention and management of complications like gestational diabetes and postpartum hemorrhage. We use large language models (LLMs) to tailor responses to pregnancy questions based on users’ goals, emotional needs (reassurance, information, etc.), literacy level, age, and geographical location. We will then evaluate the effect of personalized vs standard responses on the intention to seek health care.

Technologies to manage feeding difficulties in children

Up to 90 percent of children with autism have some difficulty with eating. In South Africa, many families of children with autism face food insecurity and rely on expensive and unhealthy fast foods, exacerbating the burden on healthcare resources. We are conducting a systematic review (with CMU librarians) to identify effective feeding interventions for the African context. We are also co-designing (with parents and healthcare workers), developing, and evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of apps that can detect and guide parents of children with autism on how to administer feeding interventions in the home. The interventions should complement therapies provided to the child by healthcare workers.

Collaborators: Skye Adams (University of the Witwatersrand), Sarah Young (CMU Libraries), Haoyong Lan (CMU Libraries)

Funder: CARTA Re-entry Grant

Project website

Financial Inclusion via Novel Intelligence and Alternative Data (FINIA)

Fintech—particularly mobile money—has been the biggest driver of financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, mobile money is mostly used for payments and small-scale savings. We are studying the correlates of financial literacy in Rwandan youth (18-32 years) and the acceptability and effectiveness of personalized financial literacy lessons (developed by generative AI) on financial literacy and intention to uptake additional financial products and services.

Collaborators: Ganesh Mani (CMU), Chimwemwe Chipeta (University of the Witwatersrand), Patrick McSharry (CMU-Africa), Karen Sowon (CMU)

Funder: Afretec Inclusive Digital Transformation Collaboration Grant

Project website

Interventions for children’s online safety

Globally, one in three internet users is a child. In Ghana and South Africa, about a third of children have had a distressing experience online, but most have not reported such incidents to their parents. We are collaborating with CMU librarians on a rapid review of studies proposing or evaluating digital applications for promoting children’s online safety. We are also running survey and co-design studies with parent-child dyads (children aged 7 to 17 years old) in Tanzania and Rwanda to design and evaluate applications that enable children to safely use the internet without excessive parental restriction and monitoring, which are strategies that are proven to be ineffective, especially in the middle to later adolescence.

Collaborators: Jema Ndibwile (CMU-Africa), Sarah Young (CMU Libraries), Haoyong Lan (CMU Libraries)

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Research team

Christopher Cofie Kuzagbe

CMU-Africa (MSIT '25)

Research interests: Human-computer interaction, interaction design, user experience and accessibility in digital products with a particular interest in enhancing the cockpit experience for airline pilots by improving instrument readability and user interface design for night flying. He is interested in creating more intuitive, clutter-free, and user-friendly aviation control systems to enhance pilot situational awareness and reduce cognitive load during flight operations. Working on project 2, "Digital feeding interventions for children with autism."
Email: kuzagbechristopher@gmail.com

Kuzagbe's website

Fabrice Mukarage

CMU-Africa (MSIT '25)

Research interests: Healthcare, human-centered design, information technology, data science & analytics, and software engineering. Working on project 2, "Digital feeding interventions for children with autism."
Email: fmukarag@andrew.cmu.edu

Mukarage's LinkedIn

Yves Ndayisaba

CMU-Africa (MS ECE '24)

Research interests: Financial inclusion, supply chain optimization, and data-driven business decision-making. Working on project 3, "Financial Inclusion via Novel Intelligence and Alternative Data (FINIA)".
Email: ymfitumu@andrew.cmu.edu

Pierre Ntakirutimana

CMU-Africa (MS ECE '24)

Co-Advisor: Dr. D.Sc. Abebe Geletu
Research interests: Machine learning for social good, behavior research, human computer interaction. Working on project 3, "Financial Inclusion via Novel Intelligence and Alternative Data (FINIA)."
Email: pntakiru@andrew.cmu.edu

Ntakirutimana's website

Floris Nzabakira

CMU-Africa (MSIT '25)

Research interests: Conversational AI, Large Language Models and Natural Language Technologies. Working on project 1, "Improving maternal knowledge on pregnancy danger signs."
Email: fnzabaki@andrew.cmu.edu

Nzabakira's LinkedIn

Daniel Owolabi

CMU-Africa (MS EAI '24)

Research interests: Project 1: Improving maternal knowledge on pregnancy danger signs

Gad Rukundo

CMU-Africa (MSIT '25)

Research interests: Project 4: Interventions for children’s online safety

Sauda Salehe

CMU-Africa (MSIT '25)

Research interests: Project 4: Interventions for children’s online safety

Past students

Project 1: Improving maternal knowledge on pregnancy danger signs

Valentine Ihogoza
Joselyne Muragijerimariya

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Courses

Course	Course Name	Location	Units	Semester Offered
04-801-T3	Applications of AI in Healthcare	Africa	6	Spring
04-601	ICT in Africa Seminar	Africa	6	Fall, Spring
04-800-C	User Experience and User Interface Engineering	Africa	12	Spring

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