The paper “Breaking it Down: Micro Goals in Physical Activity Tracking”, authored by Ruben Gouveia (LASIGE), Evangelos Karapanos and Christos Themistocleous (CUT) introduces the concept of micro-goals, such as walking a certain number of steps within the next 10 minutes, as an alternative to traditional daily activity targets.

While existing activity trackers often rely on fixed daily goals, these can be difficult to align with people’s changing routines and may become demotivating when repeatedly missed. To investigate a more flexible approach, the authors conducted a field study of Mikro, a smartwatch interface that allowed participants to set short-term walking goals.

The findings show that participants used micro-goals for different purposes, including triggering action, having fun, learning about their activity, and taking advantage of walking opportunities that would occur naturally. Although their impact on overall daily steps was mixed, micro-goals (particularly short, 10-minute goals) were effective at encouraging people to start walking sooner as compared to setting longer, more distal goals.

This work contributes a new perspective on goal-setting in self-tracking, showing how breaking larger objectives into small, situated goals can better accommodate the realities of everyday physical activity. It was presented at the CHI 2026 conference in Barcelona, Spain, held from April 13 to 17, 2026 and can be read here!