Manuel
Armayones Ruiz

Manuel Armayones, PhD in Psychology, is coordinator of the Behaviour Design Lab research group at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's eHealth Center and Full Professor of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences. His research interests are behavioural design and persuasive technology design, applied to the promotion of health and healthy lifestyles through technology. He is currently working on various projects with public and private funding whose aims include the creation of healthy habits through new technologies and the evaluation of the persuasive design of mobile applications and therapeutic adherence. These projects include studies on the level of "persuasiveness" of mobile applications in the field of health, collaborations for the persuasive design of applications aimed at promoting health and preventing diseases, analysis of barriers and facilitators for the acquisition of healthy lifestyle habits and collaboration in the evaluation and design of public policies in which the behaviour of citizens is a relevant variable. The project areas have covered: intervention in overweight and obesity, prevention of smoking and alcohol consumption, assessment of and intervention in unwanted loneliness and acquisition of healthy habits through specific methods based on behavioural design models and techniques.