Philosophy of Steps++

Steps++ is an idea I’ve been working on. You can learn more about it here: alborz.design/steps

“Why not just use a number as a goal for the total number of steps that we want to take each day? Let’s say 10,000 steps. That’s so much easier than the percentage above average.” Asked a Reddit user here.

Many reasons:

1: How would a user come up with a number?

10,000? 15,000? How would one know what their goal should be. Let’s say I’m looking for a number of steps I want to do each day that is realtive to my level of activity. I’d look in the health app to see the average number of steps I take each day, and from there I’d calculate a numbermaybe slightly higher for myself. Let’s say my average is 8,500. I’d set a goal of 9,000 for myself.

2: Unhealthy competition.

With these numbers exposed, we start to compare ourselves with others. If a friend did 12,000 we’ll try to do 13,000 and a share on facebook afterwards would just feel great. But what if a runner friend of yours is doing 60,000 a day? The good feeling wouldn’t last so long now would it?

3: We are all on our own journeys.

The healthy approach to this would be to focus on progress instead of beating everyone else. The goal shouldn’t be to beat someone else’s number. The goal is to improve steadily and bettering ourselves.

4: Solution.

An app that doesn’t even show you how many steps you’ve taken today. It only tells you how good you’ve been doing compared to yourself, instead of comparing you to your friends.

With this approach everyone is on the same level. A person trying to get in the game and someone with a very active lifestyle are suddenly on the same level. They’re both improving percent by percent in their own level. This approach takes the demotivation out of the equation and focuses solely on personal improvement.