The need to compete for users’ attention and provide them with the best user experience has increased the use of persuasion strategies in modern systems. Currently, Persuasive Systems (PSs) promote healthy behavior for well-being, energy consumption, and learning. Although the educational domain has limited investigation compared to other areas, PSs in education have been shown to be effective in motivating students. This paper summarizes the existing evidence on Persuasive Educational Systems (PESs), emphasizing research on the current design methods, evaluation methods, and characteristics. We follow Kitchenham’s method to perform a systematic literature review about PESs published between 2014 and 2020, with 19 relevant studies selected. We highlight some results from the analysis of selected papers such as persuasion strategies, use of a personalized persuasion technique, study of students’ susceptibility to strategies, integration of gamification mechanisms, and proposed tools to design PES. Moreover, we discuss interesting facts such as the common practice of using more than one tool to design PES, aspects of interaction, persuasion, learning, and the challenges in evaluating persuasive impact. Finally, as the main contribution of the paper we identify the seven necessary characteristics to build a persuasive educational system.

In recent days, we live the mobile health revolution as medical apps are flourishing in the marketplace for all the different mobile devices. Diabetes apps are the most prevalent chronic disease-specific apps available commercially for Android or iOS. This study presents a selection through a holistic evaluation of some mobile apps for preventing or managing diabetes. After the selection, the study presents an evaluation from two perspectives: 1) mapping the implemented persuasion strategies in the mobile apps and 2) a usability evaluation with real users. This paper presents an evaluation of six mobile apps (Diabetes Prevent, my Sugar, Intellin Diabetes, Social Diabetes, Glucose Buddy, and One-Touch Reveal) for diabetes management or prevention. The results reveal that most of the apps are focus on controlling the disease. They had an accepted SUS score. However, they are not implementing the persuasion strategies as it should be done for medical systems. These findings suggested that it is essential to develop mobile applications based on international regulations towards covering aspects such as diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment, and alleviation of disease. Furthermore, the applications should include persuasion strategies and integrating usability guidelines to change user’s attitudes and behaviors and improve user satisfaction in mobile apps.

Learning management systems (LMSs) are widely adopted in engineering education to support content delivery, foster collaboration, and develop digital competencies. However, existing platforms often prioritize functionality over user engagement and accessibility. There is limited research that holistically evaluates LMS usability, persuasive design, and accessibility in the context of technical education, particularly during high-frequency tasks such as assignment submission. This study aims to evaluate and compare the usability, persuasive elements, and accessibility of blackboard, canvas, and Google Classroom during the assignment submission process from the perspective of engineering students. An experimental, between-subjects design was employed with engineering students who each interacted with one of the three LMS platforms. We evaluated usability, persuasiveness and accessibility. Canvas was the most efficient platform, with shorter task completion times and fewer errors. However, it received lower scores in satisfaction and persuasive design compared to Google Classroom, which stood out in credibility and user guidance but showed more variability in efficiency. None of the platforms fully complied with key accessibility criteria, such as keyboard operability and proper form labeling. These findings highlight the importance of designing LMS platforms that balance us ability, persuasion, and accessibility to better support engagement and equity in engineering education.