Cultural variations and design guidelines to attune health programs from Spain to the Netherlands

Abstract

This master thesis report is the result of a six-month-long graduation project for the Design for Interaction master at TU Delft. The report describes the development of the design guidelines to attune the TAS program to the Netherlands.
The main goals that guided the project were three: identify which aspects of a healthy habit program (TAS program) can be adapted to the Netherlands; understand how to design for it by creating a set of design guidelines; and how to apply the guidelines to attune the program to the Netherlands..
Healthy habit programs targeted to teenagers are crucial since it is the period in which bodies develop and finish forming. The early understanding of healthy habits is key to helping teenagers to acquire lasting healthy behaviors and classrooms provide a great context that supports the knowledge building experience.
The TAS program was evaluated in 103 Spanish classrooms, in different autonomous regions, and proved to increase healthy behaviors among teenagers, such as improving nutritional habits (increase of fruit and vegetable intake and decrease of fried food) or increasing physical activity. Therefore, the opportunity to adapt a successful healthy habit program to another European country was identified.
The research phase of the project consisted mainly of sensitizing activities and literature research to get to know the context and domain of the project; and interviews with Dutch and Spanish parents and teenagers to understand the reality and daily life habits by comparison.
The opportunity to design a set of guidelines based on the research outcomes was identified, a set of 10 guidelines grouped in four groups: medium, content, communication and engagement. The guidelines were applied to one of the workshops of the TAS program with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of the guidelines and the workshop itself.
The concept was evaluated with Spanish and Dutch secondary teachers and Dutch experts in the field of health programs in order to assess the validity of the concept and identify to what extent the implemented changes were culture specific.
The project was approached from a cultural framework, in which socio-cultural dimensions served as a way to find a direction for the project but also as a tool to compare and identify cultural variables between Spain and the Netherlands.