Student projects preferably have to fall under one of the focus areas described below.
| Context | Focus Area | Description |
| Outdoor Environments | Public Places | Designing public spaces that advance wellbeing. For example, a supermarket can project the portion of how many healthy products have been purchased that day, week, or month. |
| Ambient Lights | Designing responsive environments that use ambient lights to provide feedback about behavioral patterns of crowds. For example, street lights can change color depending of how many joggers have been on that street that day. | |
| Urban Mobility | Bicycling | Designing influential strategies to facilitate bicycle commuting. For example, street signage can be used to display how many bicyclists have ridden over a bridge today. |
| Designing a mobile app to engage bicycle riders in reporting experiences with bike lanes and their quality in a selected urban area. | ||
| Persuasive Electric Vehicle | Designing influential strategies for the interior of Persuasive Electric Vehicles. For example, an interior display can show how many of previous riders have actually pedaled while riding the vehicle. | |
| Designing influential strategies for the exterior of Persuasive Electric Vehicles. For example, the exterior of the vehicles can change color depending on whether riders actually pedal or not. | ||
| Public Transit | Designing persuasive strategies aimed at increasing satisfaction with public transit commutes. For example, a city bus with happier passengers on board can obtain more colorful outlook. | |
| Multimodal Route Planning | Designing persuasive apps to promote healthier and more sustainable mobility modes. For example, accompany healthier routes with praise. | |
| Instantaneous Incentives | Designing sophisticated strategies based on instantaneous feedback about individual performance. For example, providing immediate rewards (e.g. discounts on gym memberships) or charges (e.g. for parking) depending on a chosen mobility mode. | |
| Indoor Environments | Stair-use | Designing computer-supported strategies to motivate using stairs instead of an elevator. For example, a situated display that represents various comparisons of what can happens when stairs or an elevator is chosen. |
| Water | Designing strategies to increase water intake in offices. For example, a situated display can present an increase of water consumption. | |
| Socializing | Designing strategies for office workers to increase socializing among individuals from various groups and departments. For example, specific game-like activities can be set up for employees to promote socializing. |
More about the COUHES process can be found at their website.