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the piano stairs social experiment

The Fun Theory 1 – Piano Staircase Initiative | Volkswagen

By Siena Linton

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Users of Swedish public transport were treated to a musical interlude in their journeys, snubbing the escalator for a tuneful trip up the stairs.

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Faced with the choice of taking the stairs or escalators, which would you choose? Some days, it’s just easier to stand still and let the escalator do the hard work for you. But what if taking the stairs could somehow be made more fun?

Enter, Sweden’s musical stairs . In 2009, creative advertising agency NORD DDB and car manufacturer Volkswagen noticed that the stairs at the Odenplan metro station in Stockholm, Sweden, were largely being ignored in favour of a neighbouring escalator.

Fuelled by the idea that having fun can “change behaviour for the better”, they set about finding ways to revolutionise the step experience, hoping to encourage more commuters to use the stairs by making it fun.

After what must have been a bustling brainstorm session, filled with a flurry of weird, whacky and wonderful ideas, the winning suggestion was agreed upon: turn the stairs into a fully-functional piano keyboard.

Read more: Hospital installs ‘piano staircase’ to boost exercise

Musical stairs at Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden

Overnight, the usually conventional staircase was transformed into a black and white musical mural, with each step sounding a different note when trodden on.

On footage recorded by a nearby camera, the first few travellers of the day can be seen tentatively tapping their way up the keyboard.

As the station gets busier, commuters and tourists in their plenty can be seen opting for a more tuneful exit to the station, and the escalator alternative is ignored.

Listen on Global Player: Hear more piano music on our Calm Piano playlist

Commuters use piano stairs in Stockholm, Sweden

The video, which has been viewed nearly 10 million times on YouTube, shows everyone taking part in the fun, from toddlers to dogs.

Some commuters went for the avant-garde approach, tapping out an atonal cacophony as they scaled the stairs, whilst others accompanied their commute with a major scale. One pair even hopped in tandem to create a tuneful procession of major thirds.

Andreas Dahlqvist, who was part of the creative team behind the project, said: “Everyone has the choice of the escalator or the stairs.

“You know you should be taking the stairs, but it’s easier to take the other route… If we make it a fun experience, a good experience, then people will do it”.

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Piano Stairs: A Social Experiment To Help Increase Exercise

A social experiment called “piano stairs” gave subway riders a choice between piano stairs or the escalator. Watch what happens.

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The VW Piano Stairs

Changing behavior by making things fun.

How do you convince an increasingly overweight population to get a little more exercise by taking the stairs instead of the escalator? Make it fun. A social experiment called “piano stairs” gave subway riders a choice between piano stairs or the escalator. Watch what happens.

A social experiment team called The Fun Theory team chose a German metro staircase for the piano stairs project. To create the piano staircase, they connected small pressure sensors to piano key decals. They then installed the thin black and white colored decals on each step. Each decal was programmed to play the corresponding musical note every time someone stepped on one of the sensors.

From helping the environment to helping yourself, Volkswagen ‘s clever “Fun Theory” viral ad campaign is attempting to change people’s behavior for the better.

We’re not sure if it will help Volkswagen  sell cars, but at least they are helping people while associating their brand with fun and innovation.

J. Frank Wilson

Frank Wilson is a retired teacher with over 30 years of combined experience in the education, small business technology, and real estate business. He now blogs as a hobby and spends most days tinkering with old computers. Wilson is passionate about tech, enjoys fishing, and loves drinking beer.

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  • Psychology , Psychology Experiments

The Piano Stairs Experiment: Making Life More Fun

Introduction

Suppose you’ve just taken the subway, and you need to climb up to street level. To exit the station, you can either take the stairs or the escalator. Which one do you use? Although the extra bit of exercise is the healthier choice, many people choose the escalator because of its ease. 

Explanation

But what if the stairs aren’t your average stairs - instead, they look like piano keys and stepping on one causes a piano note to be heard. Would this change your decision? Would the novelty and entertainment of the stairs outweigh the comfort and convenience of the escalator? These are the questions Volkswagen’s “The Fun Theory” ad campaign hoped to answer with their piano stairs experiment. 

The Piano Stairs Experiment

The piano stairs experiment was part of The Fun Theory, an ad campaign run by the car company Volkswagen Sweden and the ad agency DDB Stockholm to promote Volkswagen’s new, more fuel-efficient brand. The groups turned a normal staircase at a subway station in Sweden into a “piano staircase,” where stepping on a stair produced a sound. Commuters were significantly more likely to choose the stairs over the escalator when the staircase was a piano than when it was a regular staircase. 

The Experiment

In 2009, Volkswagen wanted an innovative way to promote its new environmentally-friendly BlueMotion Technologies brand, which emphasized fuel efficiency. Volkswagen partnered with the ad agency DDB Stockholm to devise a creative ad campaign. “As traditional advertising is becoming less effective … we believed we needed a more innovative approach to draw attention to BlueMotion,” DDB Stockholm deputy manager Lars Axelsson explained. 

They dubbed their marketing campaign “The Fun Theory,” based on the idea that “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.” The Fun Theory consisted of a series of videotaped experiments investigating whether making somewhat undesirable activities more entertaining could persuade individuals to make better choices. The most-watched of these videos was the piano stairs experiment, which debuted in October 2009. 

Volkswagen chose a staircase at the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden. The staircase was right next to an escalator. First, they tallied how many random subway commuters took the stairs versus the escalator on a typical day. Then, they made each step of the staircase produce a different sound when it was stepped on, like a piano. They found that 66% more commuters than normal opted to take the stairs when they were piano stairs. 

A video of the experiment was put on YouTube and had over 23 million views as of July 2020, a little over ten years later. The brand advertising is light; the only mention of Volkswagen is the company’s logo at the end. Axelsson explained that this creates a positive association between Volkswagen and a better, more fun world. 

Though far from a definitive experiment, the piano stairs experiment showed that making a task more fun can change people’s behavior for the better. Although walking up the stairs takes more effort than merely standing on an escalator, a significant number of commuters found that the enjoyment gained offset that cost. They made the healthier choice because it was presented in a new, entertaining way. This theory could be applied to other areas of life to help people make more sustainable choices, like going for runs, eating healthier, or picking up litter. The right thing to do and the fun thing to do don't have to be two different options. 

the piano stairs social experiment

Think Further

  • What are some other tasks that could be made more fun in a similar way to the piano stairs experiment?
  • Do you agree that people can be incentivized to make better decisions by making those decisions fun? Are there limits on this hypothesis? Are there tasks that could not be made fun?
  • What are some possible confounding factors in this experiment? In other words, are there other possible reasons more people took the stairs in the second part of the experiment besides the fact that they were piano stairs?

the piano stairs social experiment

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the piano stairs social experiment

  • Cashmore, Pete. “The Fun Theory: Volkswagen Masters the Viral Video.” Mashable , Mashable, 11 Oct. 2009, mashable.com/2009/10/11/the-fun-theory/.
  • Ramos, Kelsey. “Volkswagen Brings the Fun: Giant Piano Stairs and Other ‘Fun Theory’ Marketing.” Los Angeles Times , Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2009, latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2009/10/volkswagen-brings-the-fun-giant-piano-stairs-and-other-fun-theory-marketing.html.
  • “SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy.” Sites at Penn State , sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/16/the-fun-theory/#:~:text=The%20concept%20was%20for%20each,Sweden%2C%20next%20to%20an%20escalator.

the piano stairs social experiment

This gave students an opportunity to watch a video to identify key factors in our judicial system, then even followed up with a brief research to demonstrate how this case, which is seemingly non-impactful on the contemporary student, connect to them in a meaningful way

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Review Piano Stairs

Piano Stairs in Stokholm

The Piano Staircase

- The Fun Theory (initiative by Volkswagen)

“Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”

Review by Vera Hendriks

The Piano Staircase is a project by The Fun Theory (which is an initiative of Volkswagen) from 2009. The objective of the project was initially to see if they could get people to choose the stairs over the escalator by making taking the stairs more fun to do.

This project transforms a plain staircase into a piano. These piano staircases are designed to make taking the stairs more fun and to encourage the people to walk up (or down) the stairs instead of taking the elevator or escalator. According to me the Piano Staircase project is part of the gamification issue.

Thanks to the project, 66% of the people who passed by at the original project site chose to take the stairs over the escalators. “Fun can obviously change behavior for the better.” – Quote from YouTube video.

Walking up and down the stairs is a lot healthier as opposed to taking an escalator because it keeps you moving. The reason I like this project so much is because it is something I personally care about. Lately I have been trying to get my stamina up again and I have been trying to live a healthier lifestyle. I feel like it is hard to actually accomplish these things without putting a lot of effort in it, but small things like taking the stairs can already make a difference.

This is one of the contextual qualities of this project. For example, in the U.S.A. more than 2 out of 3 adults are considered overweight or obese.

the piano stairs social experiment

We recently (29th of June 2016) had one of these piano staircases “installed” at Rotterdam Central Station, and for me it has worked really well so far. It is that last push you need to just take the stairs instead of the escalator and for me, personally, it can really lighten up my mood.

The artistic qualities are a little less obvious or present in this project. The stairs look more fun when they are decorated as a piano, but it is not necessarily focused on the creation of something from the imagination or focused on the aesthetics of the project. Personally, I absolutely love the way these stairs look as opposed to the average station (metro or train), it gives the stations a much friendlier appearance.

As for the participatory qualities, these are very high in this project. People are invited to actually walk on the project (/artwork) and to play with it. Apart from actually encouraging people to take part in the project (/artwork) it “raises awareness” for physical exercise as well.

The transformative qualities in this project are initially good in my opinion, but this is also one of the weaker aspects of this project. When you first encounter the Piano Stairs it is something new and fun and exciting, but when you have seen the Piano Stairs several times and after walking on them or using them a lot it can get boring. It will not be new and fun and exciting forever, and for some people (whose main concern is not being healthier or getting more exercise) this means that they will no longer care about it. Hence they start taking the escalators again.

A great opportunity is, in my opinion, the enthusiasm there is for this project on the internet and social media. I have seen a lot of people on social media asking for something like this project to be installed near where they live and personally, I would love to see more of these Piano Staircases as well, even if it is just to cheer me up while traveling.

the piano stairs social experiment

In my opinion this project should be placed on the auto-relational side, somewhere between "completely auto-relational" and "the middle". The project was not made by the community or with the community. It was realized almost entirely be the designer (apart from the research, which included other people as well). The reason I dont think this project is completely auto-relational is because it can simply not exist without a community or participants using the project.

As for the other axis, I feel like this project should be placed on the digestive side. It does not conflict with ideals or any governmental issues. It is designed to encourage people to do something; get more exercise, and also to raise awareness for the problem that people don't move enough (which is why I haven't positioned my project all the way to the digestive side).

http://www.experientialdesignlandscapes.com/files/peeters-pt13.pdf

http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

http://creativity-online.com/work/volkswagen-fun-theory-piano-staircase/17522

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8 Famous Social Experiments

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

the piano stairs social experiment

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

the piano stairs social experiment

A social experiment is a type of research performed in psychology to investigate how people respond in certain social situations. 

In many of these experiments, the experimenters will include confederates who are people who act like regular participants but who are actually acting the part. Such experiments are often used to gain insight into social psychology phenomena.

Do people really stop to appreciate the beauty of the world? How can society encourage people to engage in healthy behaviors? Is there anything that can be done to bring peace to rival groups?

Social psychologists have been tackling questions like these for decades, and some of the results of their experiments just might surprise you.

Robbers Cave Social Experiment

Why do conflicts tend to occur between different groups? According to psychologist Muzafer Sherif, intergroup conflicts tend to arise from competition for resources, stereotypes, and prejudices. In a controversial experiment, the researchers placed 22 boys between the ages of 11 and 12 in two groups at a camp in the Robbers Cave Park in Oklahoma.

The boys were separated into two groups and spent the first week of the experiment bonding with their other group members. It wasn't until the second phase of the experiment that the children learned that there was another group, at which point the experimenters placed the two groups in direct competition with each other.

This led to considerable discord, as the boys clearly favored their own group members while they disparaged the members of the other group. In the final phase, the researchers staged tasks that required the two groups to work together. These shared tasks helped the boys get to know members of the other group and eventually led to a truce between the rivals.  

The 'Violinist in the Metro' Social Experiment

In 2007, acclaimed violinist Josh Bell posed as a street musician at a busy Washington, D.C. subway station. Bell had just sold out a concert with an average ticket price of $100 each.

He is one of the most renowned musicians in the world and was playing on a handcrafted violin worth more than $3.5 million. Yet most people scurried on their way without stopping to listen to the music. When children would occasionally stop to listen, their parents would grab them and quickly usher them on their way.

The experiment raised some interesting questions about how we not only value beauty but whether we truly stop to appreciate the remarkable works of beauty that are around us.

The Piano Stairs Social Experiment

How can you get people to change their daily behavior and make healthier choices? In one social experiment sponsored by Volkswagen as part of their Fun Theory initiative, making even the most mundane activities fun can inspire people to change their behavior.

In the experiment, a set of stairs was transformed into a giant working keyboard. Right next to the stairs was an escalator, so people were able to choose between taking the stairs or taking the escalator. The results revealed that 66% more people took the stairs instead of the escalator.  

Adding an element of fun can inspire people to change their behavior and choose the healthier alternative.

The Marshmallow Test Social Experiment

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a psychologist named Walter Mischel led a series of experiments on delayed gratification. Mischel was interested in learning whether the ability to delay gratification might be a predictor of future life success.

In the experiments, children between the ages of 3 and 5 were placed in a room with a treat (often a marshmallow or cookie). Before leaving the room, the experimenter told each child that they would receive a second treat if the first treat was still on the table after 15 minutes.  

Follow-up studies conducted years later found that the children who were able to delay gratification did better in a variety of areas, including academically. Those who had been able to wait the 15 minutes for the second treat tended to have higher SAT scores and more academic success (according to parent surveys).  

The results suggest that this ability to wait for gratification is not only an essential skill for success but also something that forms early on and lasts throughout life.

The Smoky Room Social Experiment

If you saw someone in trouble, do you think you would try to help? Psychologists have found that the answer to this question is highly dependent on the number of other people present. We are much more likely to help when we are the only witness but much less likely to lend a hand when we are part of a crowd.

The phenomenon came to the public's attention after the gruesome murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese. According to the classic tale, while multiple people may have witnessed her attack, no one called for help until it was much too late.

This behavior was identified as an example of the bystander effect , or the failure of people to take action when there are other people present. (In reality, several witnesses did immediately call 911, so the real Genovese case was not a perfect example of the bystander effect.)  

In one classic experiment, researchers had participants sit in a room to fill out questionnaires. Suddenly, the room began to fill with smoke. In some cases the participant was alone, in some there were three unsuspecting participants in the room, and in the final condition, there was one participant and two confederates.

In the situation involving the two confederates who were in on the experiment, these actors ignored the smoke and went on filling out their questionnaires. When the participants were alone, about three-quarters of the participants left the room calmly to report the smoke to the researchers.

In the condition with three real participants, only 38% reported the smoke. In the final condition where the two confederates ignored the smoke, a mere 10% of participants left to report the smoke.   The experiment is a great example of how much people rely on the responses of others to guide their actions.

When something is happening, but no one seems to be responding, people tend to take their cues from the group and assume that a response is not required.

Carlsberg Social Experiment

Have you ever felt like people have judged you unfairly based on your appearance? Or have you ever gotten the wrong first impression of someone based on how they looked? Unfortunately, people are all too quick to base their decisions on snap judgments made when they first meet people.

These impressions based on what's on the outside sometimes cause people to overlook the characteristics and qualities that lie on the inside. In one rather amusing social experiment, which actually started out as an advertisement , unsuspecting couples walked into a crowded movie theater.

All but two of the 150 seats were already full. The twist is that the 148 already-filled seats were taken by a bunch of rather rugged and scary-looking male bikers. What would you do in this situation? Would you take one of the available seats and enjoy the movie, or would you feel intimidated and leave?

In the informal experiment, not all of the couples ended up taking a seat, but those who eventually did were rewarded with cheers from the crowd and a round of free Carlsberg beers.

The exercise served as a great example of why people shouldn't always judge a book by its cover.

Halo Effect Social Experiment

In an experiment described in a paper published in 1920, psychologist Edward Thorndike asked commanding officers in the military to give ratings of various characteristics of their subordinates.

Thorndike was interested in learning how impressions of one quality, such as intelligence, bled over onto perceptions of other personal characteristics, such as leadership, loyalty, and professional skill.   Thorndike discovered that when people hold a good impression of one characteristic, those good feelings tend to affect perceptions of other qualities.

For example, thinking someone is attractive can create a halo effect that leads people also to believe that a person is kind, smart, and funny.   The opposite effect is also true. Negative feelings about one characteristic lead to negative impressions of an individual's other features.

When people have a good impression of one characteristic, those good feelings tend to affect perceptions of other qualities.

False Consensus Social Experiment

During the late 1970s, researcher Lee Ross and his colleagues performed some eye-opening experiments.   In one experiment, the researchers had participants choose a way to respond to an imagined conflict and then estimate how many people would also select the same resolution.

They found that no matter which option the respondents chose, they tended to believe that the vast majority of other people would also choose the same option. In another study, the experimenters asked students on campus to walk around carrying a large advertisement that read "Eat at Joe's."

The researchers then asked the students to estimate how many other people would agree to wear the advertisement. They found that those who agreed to carry the sign believed that the majority of people would also agree to carry the sign. Those who refused felt that the majority of people would refuse as well.

The results of these experiments demonstrate what is known in psychology as the false consensus effect .

No matter what our beliefs, options, or behaviors, we tend to believe that the majority of other people also agree with us and act the same way we do.

A Word From Verywell

Social psychology is a rich and varied field that offers fascinating insights into how people behave in groups and how behavior is influenced by social pressures. Exploring some of these classic social psychology experiments can provide a glimpse at some of the fascinating research that has emerged from this field of study.

Frequently Asked Questions

An example of a social experiment might be one that investigates the halo effect, a phenomenon in which people make global evaluations of other people based on single traits. An experimenter might have participants interact with people who are either average looking or very beautiful, and then ask the respondents to rate the individual on unrelated qualities such as intelligence, skill, and kindness. The purpose of this social experiment would be to seek if more attractive people are also seen as being smarter, more capable, and nicer.

The Milgram obedience experiment is one of the most famous social experiments ever performed. In the experiment, researchers instructed participants to deliver what they believed was a painful or even dangerous electrical shock to another person. In reality, the person pretending to be shocked was an actor and the electrical shocks were simply pretend. Milgram's results suggested that as many as 65% of participants would deliver a dangerous electrical shock because they were ordered to do so by an authority figure.

A social experiment is defined by its purpose and methods. Such experiments are designed to study human behavior in a social context. They often involved placing participants in a controlled situation in order to observe how they respond to certain situation or events. 

A few ideas for simple social experiments might involve:

  • Stand in a crowd and stare at a random spot on the ground to see if other people will stop to also look
  • Copy someone's body language and see how they respond
  • Stand next to someone in an elevator even if there is plenty of space to stand elsewhere
  • Smile at people in public and see how many smile back
  • Give random strangers a small prize and see how they respond

Sherif M. Superordinate goals in the reduction of intergroup conflict . American Journal of Sociology . 1958;63(4):349-356. doi:10.1086/222258

Peeters M, Megens C, van den Hoven E, Hummels C, Brombacher A. Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards long-term behavioral change . In: Berkovsky S, Freyne J, eds. Lecture Notes in Computer Science . Vol 7822. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg; 2013. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-37157-8_21

Mischel W, Ebbeson EB, Zeiss A. Cognitive and attentional mechanisms in delay of gratification . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1972;21(2):204–218. doi:10.1037/h0032198

Mischel W, Shoda Y, Peake PK. Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions . Developmental Psychology. 1990;26(6):978-986. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.26.6.978

Benderly, BL. Psychology's tall tales . gradPSYCH Magazine . 2012;9:20.

Latane B, Darley JM. Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1968;10(3):215-221. doi:10.1037/h0026570

Thorndike EL. A constant error in psychological ratings . Journal of Applied Psychology. 1920;4(1):25-29. doi:10.1037/h0071663

Talamas SN, Mayor KI, Perrett DI.  Blinded by beauty: Attractiveness bias and accurate perceptions of academic performance.   PLoS One . 2016;11(2):e0148284. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0148284

Ross, L, Greene, D, & House, P. The "false consensus effect": An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology . 1977;13(3):279-301. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(77)90049-X

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Piano staircase: People choose musical stairs over escalator in experiment designed by Volkswagen - Watch

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Updated May 9, 2022, 09:56 IST

Screengrab from the video originally shared by Larry Kim on Twitter

Screengrab from the video originally shared by Larry Kim on Twitter

  • Commuters at the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm chose stairs that looked and sounded like a piano every time they stepped on it.
  • It was one of a series of experiments designed by Volkswagen as part of 'The Fun Theory' initiative in 2009.
  • The objective of the campaign was to make mundane tasks fun and bring about positive change through changing people's behaviour.

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Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards Long-Term Behavioral Change

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the piano stairs social experiment

  • Michel Peeters 18 ,
  • Carl Megens 18 ,
  • Elise van den Hoven 18 ,
  • Caroline Hummels 18 &
  • Aarnout Brombacher 18  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7822))

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  • International Conference on Persuasive Technology

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This paper addresses the development of Social Stairs, an intelligent musical staircase to change people’s behavior in the long-term to take the stairs in favor of the elevator. Through designing with the Experiential Design Landscape (EDL) method, a design opportunity was found that social engagement encouraged people to take the stairs at work in favor of the elevator. To encourage this social behavior, people who involved each other and worked together whilst using the Social Stairs were treated with more diverse orchestral chimes that echoed up the stairwell. In this paper we reflect on the differences between the persuasive system of the well-known Piano Staircase and the Social Stairs. We report on the deployment of the Social Stairs for a period of three weeks in the public space within the university community and identify opportunities for triggering intrinsic motivation, social engagement and how to keep people involved in the long-term.

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Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5612AZ, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Michel Peeters, Carl Megens, Elise van den Hoven, Caroline Hummels & Aarnout Brombacher

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Shlomo Berkovsky

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Peeters, M., Megens, C., van den Hoven, E., Hummels, C., Brombacher, A. (2013). Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards Long-Term Behavioral Change . In: Berkovsky, S., Freyne, J. (eds) Persuasive Technology. PERSUASIVE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7822. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37157-8_21

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-37157-8_21
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Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards Long-Term Behavioral Change

  • Michel Peeters , C. Megens , +2 authors A. Brombacher
  • Published in International Conference on… 3 April 2013
  • Art, Engineering

51 Citations

Stimulight: exploring social interaction to reduce physical inactivity among office workers, fostering social interaction in playful cities, actistairs: design and acceptance of a technology-based intervention to advocate stair-climbing in public spaces, measurement of user satisfaction in vertical pedestrian movements, ambidots: an ambient interface to mediate casual social settings through peripheral interaction, exploring persuasion in the home: results of a long-term study on energy consumption behavior, bringing movement to digital tasks at the office: designing an acceptably active interface interaction for sending emails, fontana: triggering physical activity and social connectedness through an interactive water installation, a model for evaluating the user satisfaction of human movements on stairs through the ergonomic design approach, combat tanking in education: the tanc model for playful distance learning in social virtual reality, 13 references, a behavior model for persuasive design, experiential design landscapes as a design tool for market research of disruptive intelligent systems, the design with intent method: a design tool for influencing user behaviour., motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence., shattuck lecture. we can do better--improving the health of the american people., we can do better — improving the health of the american people, persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do, intrinsic motivation..

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Review of “Persuasive technology: Using computers to change what we think and do by B. J. Fogg” Morgan Kaufmann, 2003

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    Overnight, the usually conventional staircase was transformed into a black and white musical mural, with each step sounding a different note when trodden on. On footage recorded by a nearby camera, the first few travellers of the day can be seen tentatively tapping their way up the keyboard. As the station gets busier, commuters and tourists in ...

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    The VW Piano Stairs. A social experiment team called The Fun Theory team chose a German metro staircase for the piano stairs project. To create the piano staircase, they connected small pressure sensors to piano key decals. They then installed the thin black and white colored decals on each step. Each decal was programmed to play the ...

  3. The Piano Stairs Experiment: Making Life More Fun

    The piano stairs experiment was part of The Fun Theory, an ad campaign run by the car company Volkswagen Sweden and the ad agency DDB Stockholm to promote Volkswagen's new, more fuel-efficient brand. The groups turned a normal staircase at a subway station in Sweden into a "piano staircase," where stepping on a stair produced a sound.

  4. Review Piano Stairs

    Review by Vera Hendriks. The Piano Staircase is a project by The Fun Theory (which is an initiative of Volkswagen) from 2009. The objective of the project was initially to see if they could get people to choose the stairs over the escalator by making taking the stairs more fun to do. This project transforms a plain staircase into a piano.

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    Follow us on http://www.facebook.com/thefuntheoryWe believe that the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We ca...

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    In 2009, Volkswagen conducted a fun experiment at the Odenplan metro station in Stockholm, Sweden. In the subway, most people predominantly used the escalator and ignored the nearby stairs. To ...

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    Step into the enchanting world of The Piano Stairs Social Experiment, where music and urban spaces intertwine to create moments of unexpected joy. Join us in...

  8. The Piano Stairs

    Making things fun is a way of changing the incentives and no one says - not even neo-classical economics - that rational agents are not allowed to have fun. Thus, it may be concluded that the piano staircase isn't a nudge. Still, the widespread belief that the piano staircase is nudging shouldn't be attributed to ignorance.

  9. The story behind the Web's No. 1 video

    A social experiment in Sweden has successfully encouraged people to eschew the escalator by transforming the adjacent stairs into a playable piano. YouTube Facebook

  10. Social Experiments and Studies in Psychology

    A social experiment is a type of psychological research that tests how people respond to situations. Learn more about some of the most famous social experiments. ... van den Hoven E, Hummels C, Brombacher A. Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards long-term behavioral change. In: Berkovsky S, Freyne J, eds. Lecture Notes in Computer ...

  11. PDF Social Stairs: taking the Piano Staircase towards long-term behavioral

    The Piano Staircase is persuasive technology designed with an explicit intention to change people's attitude or behavior to choose the stairs over the escalator (IJsselsteijn et al., 2006)(Lockton et al. 2010). It is clearly shows the potential of how technology can persuade people, by triggering new moti-vations, to change an attitude ...

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    A viral video on the internet shows how commuters in Stockholm, Sweden, chose stairs that look like a piano over the escalator. The Piano Staircase experiment was part of the Fun Theory initiative launched by car manufacturer Volkswagen in 2009 to change people's behaviour positively by making mundane activities fun., Viral News - Times Now

  13. (PDF) Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards Long-Term

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  15. Social Stairs: Taking the Piano Staircase towards Long-Term ...

    Abstract. This paper addresses the development of Social Stairs, an intelligent musical staircase to change people's behavior in the long-term to take the stairs in favor of the elevator. Through designing with the Experiential Design Landscape (EDL) method, a design opportunity was found that social engagement encouraged people to take the ...

  16. The Piano Stairs Experiment: Making Life More Fun

    The piano stairs experiment was part of The Fun Theory, an ad campaign run by the car company Volkswagen Sweden and the ad agency DDB Stockholm to promote Volkswagen's new, more fuel-efficient brand. The groups turned a normal staircase at a subway station in Sweden into a "piano staircase," where stepping on a stair produced a sound.

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    The Fun Theory - an initiative of Volkswagen. This is one of a series of experiments for a new brand campaign of VW. Have a look - the piano stairs are reall...

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    In this paper, the deployment of the Social Stairs for a period of three weeks in the public space within the university community is reported on and opportunities for triggering intrinsic motivation, social engagement and how to keep people involved in the long-term are identified. This paper addresses the development of Social Stairs, an intelligent musical staircase to change people's ...

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    utilized the staircase in a public space of a university building to set up the prototype "Piano Staircase" (PS) (Fig. 1.). Aligned with design criteria, the prototype was devel-oped like a real piano, and each stair corresponded to a certain musical note. Fig. 1. Piano staircase (based on the DDB's work [10]). 3.2 Participants and Procedure

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