Table 1.

Summary of the effort-optimized intervention 3-step design process and related components.

Component			Explanation		Example
Nurturing salience
	Increasing task or goal availability	How easy is it to think about the goal compared to competing demands at a desired time point?		Just-in-time text messaging or push notifications about the targeted task; using implementation intentions to mark dinner as an environmental cue for a parent to conduct a family gratitude exercise
	Creating an actionable script	Triggering a step-by-step script to convey exactly what to do to foster the automaticity of the script during the task		Embedding a simple step-by-step app guidance for parents learning what to do in the face of their child’s panic attack
	Incentive salience for a task or goal	A cognitive process that includes an automatic motivational component that links a person’s desires to a rewarding stimulus to create a feedback loop toward behavior change		Offering a meaningful immediate reward through the app such as celebration of a successful running exercise
	Optimizing novelty	Avoiding habituation by not presenting similar stimuli over and over again and varying the affective impact on the individual		Changing the delivery medium of inspirational motivational messages from text, video, and audio across a program
Making the completion of therapeutic activities as effortless as possible
	Setting graded tasks	Determining small and achievable goals, and moving forward in small steps		A mobile app beginning running distance at 0.5 km and gradually stepping the user up to 5 km
	Setting dynamically tailored tasks	Adapting to the user’s state based on passive data tasks they care about and past failures and successes		When it takes more time for the user to acquire a skill, they receive additional features from the program prior to moving forward.
	Reducing the effort required to engage in therapeutic activities	Keeping all relevant tools available in-house; making it as easy as possible to perform the activity		Taking a photo of a meal through the app which analyzes it to document calorie intake; automatically triggering changes to screen color temperature based on time of day
Turning effort into assets
	Documenting and reflecting on past effort-related activities in a meaningful way	Turning effort into assets by documenting and reflecting on aspects users care about during the therapeutic process; once assets are made, users are inclined to keep investing so that their assets will not go to waste		Presenting effortful activities the user conducted (eg, user reports on socializing with a friend) and how these activities are helpful (eg increase life satisfaction other time)
	Turning effort into a meaningful narrative	Helping people acknowledge the link between the effort they just exerted and their commitment to the therapeutic process		Upon reporting a positive interaction with their child, parents are asked to celebrate investing effort in becoming better parents
	Reframing effort as positive	Embedding a narrative in which the reward is the respect for asserting effort beyond skills acquisition		Encouraging users who finished an online learning on coping with depression by stressing out how this activity shows their commitment to feeling better