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Tracking Outdoor Sports – User Experience Perspective
Abstract
In this paper, the potential role of a sport tracking application is examined in the context of supporting tracking outdoor
sporting activities. A user study with 28 participants was conducted to study the usage habits and user experiences evoked.
The application consists of a mobile tracking tool and a related web service. It collects and stores workout data such as
the route, speed and time, and compiles a training diary that can be viewed in many ways during the exercise and afterwards.
Data can be uploaded into a web service for further analysis or for sharing it with others. The results show high interest
in tracking outdoor sports with a mobile phone application – the participants used the application during almost all exercise
sessions and stated that they would continue using the application after the study. Sharing data was not perceived as valuable,
although some usage scenarios for social sharing arose.
... During recent years, various mobile devices and applications have been developed, such as heart rate monitors and pedometers, which can be used to assist users when they are performing physical activities. The mobile devices and applications can be used to help users by giving social support, helping users to visualise perceived benefits, providing information or feedback about the physical activities, or helping users to set appropriate goals (Martin et al., 1984;Locke and Latham, 1985;Annesi, 1998;Laverie, 1998;Leslie et al., 1999;Paschali et al., 2005;Ahtinen et al., 2008). Some mobile devices and applications can, for example, provide feedback about physiological responses and also provide location information, which is essential for some sports and outdoor activities. ...
... In addition, some mobile devices and applications provide enhanced services on the internet. For example, Ahtinen et al. (2008) described a sports tracking application on a mobile phone, an associated enhanced sports tracking service on the internet and a user study in which 28 experimental subjects evaluated both the sports tracking application on the mobile phone and the associated enhanced sports tracking service on the internet. ...
... Other papers describe various characteristics of mobile wellness devices and applications. For example, Ahtinen et al. (2008) and Yang et al. (2006) described system integration techniques, which are critical for developing mobile wellness devices and applications. Yang et al. (2006) and Höysniemi et al. (2004) developed a prototype interactive shadow-boxing game, which uses a web camera to detect body movements and uses the body movements to control the game. ...
Mobile wellness devices are popular in personal devices, which are used to maintain health during physical activities. This paper presents theoretical work on digital human experience models. The paper uses digital human experience models to improve the experiences that users have when they interact with mobile augmented reality devices. This paper uses user-centred design methods and results from previous studies to create digital human experience models, which can be used to capture, store, process and transmit information for mobile augmented reality wellness devices. The results showed that users can use the new augmented reality wellness devices more easily to store, process and transmit wellness information and to more easily manage their everyday lives. This paper creates the conceptual design of the digital human experience models, with experimental subjects. Future studies will create and test the complete digital human experience models (in software), with lead users. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ihamäki, P. (2015) 'Digital human experience models for augmented reality mobile wellness devices', Int. more than 20 papers and she has presented papers in more than 30 conferences. Her research interests include digital culture, digital education applications, digital tourism applications and user-centred design.
... Of the studies, 78.0% (n = 32/41) analyzed feedback, considered in a multitude of forms, with some studies using more than one form. Feedback was represented as bar graphs and a virtual map [98,[116][117][118][119][120]; audio feedback from virtual trainers [77]; illustrations through avatars [17,55,59,75,121,[123][124][125]127]; tailored text and email messages [94,[128][129][130]; real time, self-monitoring, receiving reminders, GPS tracking, tempo of music, and biofeedback [18,19,54,77,86,89,98,119,120,122,123,126,128,[131][132][133][134][135]. ...
... Of the studies, 78.0% (n = 32/41) analyzed feedback, considered in a multitude of forms, with some studies using more than one form. Feedback was represented as bar graphs and a virtual map [98,[116][117][118][119][120]; audio feedback from virtual trainers [77]; illustrations through avatars [17,55,59,75,121,[123][124][125]127]; tailored text and email messages [94,[128][129][130]; real time, self-monitoring, receiving reminders, GPS tracking, tempo of music, and biofeedback [18,19,54,77,86,89,98,119,120,122,123,126,128,[131][132][133][134][135]. ...
... The qualitative findings further indicate that feedback motivates users, because visualizing PA keeps activities in front of their minds and reminds them if discrepancies are present in their goals [75,119]. Feedback may also increase self-efficacy, as reflected in users' realizing their capabilities, for instance, expressed by one user in Harries et al. [55], "Actually I walked two miles the other day and it seemed like nothing; I can walk that." ...
Background
Literature shows mixed evidence about the power of mobile phone applications to foster physical activity. A systematic integration that offers insights into which mobile phone application techniques can or cannot foster physical activity is lacking, as is a theoretical integration of current research.
Objectives
We performed a systematic review guided by a theoretical framework focusing on effects that certain mobile phone application techniques have on physical activity, to improve our understanding of what techniques are more or less effective.
Methods
We identified articles by searching EBSCO Business Source Complete, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Springer, PLoS ONE, Taylor and Francis, IEEE, Social Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, PUBMED, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar. We considered articles if (1) they referred to the use of mobile phone applications to promote physical activity; (2) their methodological approach allowed one to derive appropriate results (e.g., intervention-based approach, observational study); (3) they were published in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings; and (4) they were written in English. The literature search resulted in 41 usable studies. Meta-synthesis and vote counting were applied to analyze these studies.
Results
Based on the ratio of supportive versus non-supportive evidence in both the qualitative and the quantitative studies, we propose the following descending rank order for the effectiveness of application techniques to foster physical activity. This is tentative in nature because the current overall small body of literature made coming to definite conclusions difficult: (1) feedback, (2) goal setting and its sub-forms, (3) competition, social sharing with familiar users in both segregated and social network groups, and (4) social sharing with strangers in segregated groups, reward, and social sharing with strangers in social network groups. Rewards in particular provided mixed results, and social sharing with strangers in segregated and social network groups seemed rather ineffective but may work under special conditions that need to be identified in additional research. One limitation of our study was that our results are mostly derived from qualitative studies, since quantitative studies are underrepresented in the field.
Conclusion
Several mobile phone application techniques were identified that have the potential to foster physical activity, whereas others were identified that are unlikely to increase physical activity. Major avenues for future research include more theoretical development and more quantitative studies, among others.
... Previous research has revealed that the usage of sports and wellness technologies can promote the motivation towards exercise (e.g. Ahtinen et al., 2008;. Prior research (e.g. also suggests that exercise and games can be combined without adverse effects on the overall experience and enjoyment of playing, thus demonstrating the potential of exergames to motivate people to do more exercise or be physically more active. ...
... Prior research has shown that the usage of sports and wellness technologies can have positive effects on the motivation towards exercise (e.g., Ahtinen et al., 2008;. In recent years, these technologies have become a part of everyday life for more and more people. ...
... Prior research has revealed that the usage of sports and wellness technologies can promote the motivation towards exercise and sports (e.g., Ahtinen et al., 2008;. In the past years, these technologies have become an essential part of the everyday life of many people. ...
There is a growing demand for information systems (IS) that could advance desirable health behaviours among people. While digital gaming has generally been perceived to increase individuals’ sedentary time, gaming can also act as a medium to promote health, for example, by increasing individuals’ levels of physical activity. Exergaming, a form of digital gaming that combines games with physical activity, has been mentioned as potential means of influencing physical activity levels. Previous research on exergaming has been dominated by a very device-centric perspective, focusing more on its technological and physical aspects, than a more user-centric perspective that focuses on the users and the different aspects of usage. Such user-centric focus is greatly needed to achieve the recognised yet unreached potential of exergames, for example, to enhance the population’s levels of physical activity. The importance of researching IS usage has been continuously stressed in the field of IS, and increasing the understanding of IS use is important for both scholars and practitioners alike. Considering the identified research gap and the importance of the topic, this thesis takes a user-centric approach with aim to explain relevant aspects throughout the entire use cycle of exergames: intention to use, adoption and usage habits – as well as the reasons for not using – and use continuance after exergaming experiences. This thesis also examines the ability of exergames to promote physical activity and physical fitness. To investigate these aspects, relevant studies are carried out using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This thesis demonstrates the perceptions of exergames and how they differ in different phases of the use cycle. The results highlight the importance of hedonic enjoyment perceptions behind usage intentions and the actual use of exergames; however, for the continued use of exergames, the perceptions of utilitarian benefit also have an important role. The theoretical contribution comes from providing valuable new knowledge to the scientific community and increasing the theoretical understanding of exergaming. The findings also pose several practical implications for different stakeholders, ranging from the developers and marketers of exergames to the public sector and the users.
... Furthermore, the studies suggest that there are many users who do not see any value in sharing their exercise data on self-tracking platforms or social networking sites. Reasons for not sharing include lack of interest (Fritz et al., 2014;Pinkerton et al., 2017), shame or hesitations regarding others' interest Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Smith & Treem, 2017), privacy concerns (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Fritz et al., 2014;Pinkerton et al., 2017), lack of social support (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and strategy (i.e., withholding information that could benefit others for one's disadvantage; Smith & Treem, 2017). Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. ...
... Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. According to previous literature, perceived social benefits of using sport-related self-tracking platforms include finding new routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen & Nurkka, 2013), seeing content and learning from others (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;, getting feedback and guidance (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;, comparing and competing against others (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Smith & Treem, 2017), and maintaining social networks (Ahtinen et al., 2008). Additionally, studies show that people share their exercise data on social networking sites to keep other people informed Pinkerton et al., 2017;, to inspire and motivate others Pinkerton et al., 2017;, to gain recognition (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and to get motivation for the practice Pinkerton et al., 2017). ...
... Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. According to previous literature, perceived social benefits of using sport-related self-tracking platforms include finding new routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen & Nurkka, 2013), seeing content and learning from others (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;, getting feedback and guidance (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;, comparing and competing against others (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Smith & Treem, 2017), and maintaining social networks (Ahtinen et al., 2008). Additionally, studies show that people share their exercise data on social networking sites to keep other people informed Pinkerton et al., 2017;, to inspire and motivate others Pinkerton et al., 2017;, to gain recognition (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and to get motivation for the practice Pinkerton et al., 2017). ...
... However, despite the obvious benefits of exercising, people often need extra motivation to engage in it regularly. Consequently, digital tools have been developed to provide means for social support, visualise the perceived benefits of being active, give feedback on the workout and help set appropriate goals (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Munson and Consolvo, 2012). Previous research on online exercise diaries (Malinen and Ojala, 2011) and sports tracking applications (Ahtinen et al., 2008) shows that both personal and social uses can be identified for the tools. ...
... Consequently, digital tools have been developed to provide means for social support, visualise the perceived benefits of being active, give feedback on the workout and help set appropriate goals (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Munson and Consolvo, 2012). Previous research on online exercise diaries (Malinen and Ojala, 2011) and sports tracking applications (Ahtinen et al., 2008) shows that both personal and social uses can be identified for the tools. ...
... In goal-setting, public commitment seems to play an important role: by sharing their goals with others, people tend to feel a social pressure to stick to them (Burke and Settles, 2011;Consolvo et al., 2006). Furthermore, user may use the social features as a resource to seek advice (Ploderer et al., 2008b), to find training partners (Consolvo et al., 2006) or to get training motivation and inspiration by reviewing other users' exercise logs and jogging routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen and Ojala, 2011) or progress pictures of their trained bodies (Ploderer et al., 2008a). At the same time, self-promotion in the form of pointing out personal accomplishments with pictures has motivational value for the user (Ploderer et al., 2008b). ...
The dissertation explores a current and popular phenomenon referred to as ‘online communities’ from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. Online communities are discussed in the context of a wider development in social life from small geography-based units to large and dispersed social networks, which can be mediated by technology. In this study, online communities are understood as fluid objects that are created and maintained through users’ social interactions and actual social practices. Therefore, they are not stable and fixed groups but, instead, a social process that transforms over time.
The empirical portion of this work illustrates the multifaceted nature of the research subject and consists of five case studies exploring the usage of software intended for various purposes: an online photo-sharing service, an online exercise diary, online auctions, and social-media applications for smartphones. In addition, there is a research article consisting of a literature review that synthesise research into online community participation conducted over the past 12 years. The findings from the empirical sub-studies show that community-evocative feelings and behaviors can emerge within various online settings, including dispersed networks and content-oriented sites focusing on artefacts that users produce, such as photographs. However, users can have very different orientations with respect to their interest in social networking and community-building within the context of the same site. The literature review shows that the majority of previous research on user participation has focused on the quantity of their activity. Instead of dividing users into active and passive on the basis of the amount of content they produce, research should acknowledge that there is greater variety in the ways of participating and belonging to an online community.
The dissertation vividly illustrates that online communities are a constantly changing and developing phenomenon. In recent years, the most notable technological changes have been the surge in popularity of large-scale social network sites and increased usage of the Internet via mobile devices. In order for the concept of community to be applied in description of online sociability within current technological settings, the meaning of this term and the criteria for community needs to be rethought.
... However, despite the obvious benefits of exercising, people often need extra motivation to engage in it regularly. Consequently, digital tools have been developed to provide means for social support, visualise the perceived benefits of being active, give feedback on the workout and help set appropriate goals (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Munson and Consolvo, 2012). Previous research on online exercise diaries (Malinen and Ojala, 2011) and sports tracking applications (Ahtinen et al., 2008) shows that both personal and social uses can be identified for the tools. ...
... Consequently, digital tools have been developed to provide means for social support, visualise the perceived benefits of being active, give feedback on the workout and help set appropriate goals (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Munson and Consolvo, 2012). Previous research on online exercise diaries (Malinen and Ojala, 2011) and sports tracking applications (Ahtinen et al., 2008) shows that both personal and social uses can be identified for the tools. ...
... In goal-setting, public commitment seems to play an important role: by sharing their goals with others, people tend to feel a social pressure to stick to them (Burke and Settles, 2011;Consolvo et al., 2006). Furthermore, user may use the social features as a resource to seek advice (Ploderer et al., 2008b), to find training partners (Consolvo et al., 2006) or to get training motivation and inspiration by reviewing other users' exercise logs and jogging routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen and Ojala, 2011) or progress pictures of their trained bodies (Ploderer et al., 2008a). At the same time, self-promotion in the form of pointing out personal accomplishments with pictures has motivational value for the user (Ploderer et al., 2008b). ...
This study investigates the influence of culture on the use of a website intended for tracking exercise activities. The data was collected using an online survey with 258 respondents from three national backgrounds: Germany, the USA and Spain. In the analysis, the focus was on determining whether users' cultural background impacts their use and perception of the site, especially as concerns social networking and the sharing of content. The Spanish were most interested in social networking, collaboration and sharing content with others, whereas the German participants were the least interested in these activities. The applicability of Hofstede's cultural theory in the explanation of differences between national cultures in online community use is discussed. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Malinen, S. and Nurkka, P. (xxxx) 'Cultural influence on online community use: a cross-cultural study on online exercise diary users of three nationalities', Int. Her background is in social psychology and usability, and she has been working in several research projects with the focus of developing internet services for different user groups. Her PhD research explores how communities form online and discusses concepts of user-participation, collaboration and social networking.
... Furthermore, the studies suggest that there are many users who do not see any value in sharing their exercise data on self-tracking platforms or social networking sites. Reasons for not sharing include lack of interest (Fritz et al., 2014;Pinkerton et al., 2017), shame or hesitations regarding others' interest (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Smith & Treem, 2017), privacy concerns (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Fritz et al., 2014;Ojala & Saarela, 2010;Pinkerton et al., 2017), lack of social support (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and strategy (i.e., withholding information that could benefit others for one's disadvantage; Smith & Treem, 2017). Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. ...
... Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. According to previous literature, perceived social benefits of using sport-related self-tracking platforms include finding new routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen & Nurkka, 2013), seeing content and learning from others (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Ojala & Saarela, 2010), getting feedback and guidance (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Ojala & Saarela, 2010), comparing and competing against others (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Ojala & Saarela, 2010;Smith & Treem, 2017), and maintaining social networks (Ahtinen et al., 2008). Additionally, studies show that people share their exercise data on social networking sites to keep other people informed (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Stragier et al., 2015), to inspire and motivate others (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Stragier et al., 2015), to gain recognition (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and to get motivation for the practice (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017). ...
... Even though many users experience self-tracking 'as a relationship between "me", "my data", and "my device"' (Lomborg et al., 2018, p. 4601), the reviewed studies indicate that those practitioners who make use of the social features of the platforms find it beneficial for their practice. According to previous literature, perceived social benefits of using sport-related self-tracking platforms include finding new routes (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Malinen & Nurkka, 2013), seeing content and learning from others (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Ojala & Saarela, 2010), getting feedback and guidance (Malinen & Nurkka, 2013;Ojala & Saarela, 2010), comparing and competing against others (Ahtinen et al., 2008;Ojala & Saarela, 2010;Smith & Treem, 2017), and maintaining social networks (Ahtinen et al., 2008). Additionally, studies show that people share their exercise data on social networking sites to keep other people informed (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Stragier et al., 2015), to inspire and motivate others (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017;Stragier et al., 2015), to gain recognition (Pinkerton et al., 2017), and to get motivation for the practice (Lomborg & Frandsen, 2016;Pinkerton et al., 2017). ...
Self-tracking is increasingly popular in recreational sport. Leisure sports practitioners use wearable devices that are connected to online platforms to record, analyse, and share their exercise data. While doing that they interact with a digital system, with themselves, and with peers. This paper examines social-communicative aspects of self-tracking, and the support that these aspects and their associated practices may provide for physical activity behaviour. Data for the study was collected using an online survey and in-depth interviews with Finnish trail runners. The results indicate that sharing exercise data with others on a regular basis can support physical activity behaviour because it is mediated by social peer support. The analysis identified information sharing, comparison, and recognition as the main social-communicative aspects that motivate sharing physical activity data online, and ordinariness and privacy as reasons that limit data sharing. This paper contributes to the discussion on digital leisure by showing that for many users, communal and self-motivational values of self-tracking practices surpass the concern of surveillance and commodification of leisure time.
... In the literature, there are different approaches for categorizing physical activity applications. Since categorizations of other scholars (West et al., 2012;Kranz et al., 2012), are built on the basis of characteristics of logging and the way instructions are given, it was decided to use the categorization of Ahtinen et al. (2008) by taking into account the possibilities that the applications may have for evoking happiness. Unlike other categorizations, which are more primarily based on task functions, Ahtinen et al. (2008). ...
... Since categorizations of other scholars (West et al., 2012;Kranz et al., 2012), are built on the basis of characteristics of logging and the way instructions are given, it was decided to use the categorization of Ahtinen et al. (2008) by taking into account the possibilities that the applications may have for evoking happiness. Unlike other categorizations, which are more primarily based on task functions, Ahtinen et al. (2008). categorizes physical activity applications based on the motivation of the users' perspective, such as loggers, personal trainers, playful applications and games, and social applications. ...
... The second criteria in selecting the applications were the scores given by users; therefore, the ones that score below 3.5 were eliminated on account of perceived credibility. By categorizing the applications into personal trainers, loggers, playful applications and social applications (Ahtinen, 2008), and then sorting them based on their ratings; the Nike Training Club, Sports Tracker, Fit for Rhythm and Fitocracy applications were the ones selected to be used in this study. ...
Many studies concentrate on the use of persuasive technology to encourage people for active lifestyles, yet it is a design challenge to create intrinsic motivation for users to increase or maintain healthy behaviour. Building upon the relationship between happiness and staying active, this thesis presents design qualities perceived as a source of happiness. The study empirically examines data gathered from semi-structured, in-depth interviews of 20 people between the ages of 20 and 30. It applies content analysis method to analyze product qualities associated with happiness in relation to users’ short-term experiences with smart mobile applications. Benefiting from the theory of wellness, this thesis explores the qualities of mobile physical activity apps and proposes possibilities for happiness.
... The benefits of social media have also been recognized in the design of health and wellness applications. There has been an interest to motivate people to exercise more regularly, and adopt a healthier life-style by documenting, tracking and sharing their individual training data online [1,7]. Previous research on exercise related applications points out that they are mostly used for keeping a track of personal exercise, but needs for social sharing have been identified as well [1,19]. ...
... There has been an interest to motivate people to exercise more regularly, and adopt a healthier life-style by documenting, tracking and sharing their individual training data online [1,7]. Previous research on exercise related applications points out that they are mostly used for keeping a track of personal exercise, but needs for social sharing have been identified as well [1,19]. ...
... In addition, social interaction, enjoyment and competence have been found to motivate exercising [32]. Consequently, to promote exercise and to increase satisfaction in exercise activities, (digital) tools have been developed to provide means for social support, visualize the perceived benefits of being active, give feedback about the workout and help set appropriate goals [1,10,24]. ...
This study investigates users of a newly launched website aimed at tracking exercise activities. The data was collected through an online questionnaire with 282 respondents. Three nationalities, Spanish, Germans and Americans, were compared, and the results show that their relation to community aspects of the service was significantly different. The Spanish showed most interest in collaboration and creation of new contacts, whereas Germans were the least interested in these activities. The finding may be explained by the differences of these national cultures along the individualism-collectivism dimension of Hofstede's cultural theory. Across the nationalities, the users were foremost motivated by using the website for promoting their individual goals in exercise.
... Previous studies have suggested that sports technology can be utilized in motivating people towards physical activity (e.g., Ahtinen et al., 2008;Bravata et al., 2007), and that the use of sports technology and feedback can increase the probability of motor learning and skill acquisition (Liebermann et al., 2002). Mobile smart phones are widely adopted and thus, a good platform for exercise and well-being related applications. ...
... Regarding the use of an exercise application, we found that using an exercise application can affect the exercise motivation and behaviour. This finding is in line with those of e.g., Ahtinen et al. (2008) and Bravata et al. (2007). Our findings complement previous studies by presenting sources from which this effect stems. ...
Gamification and different exercise applications have become increasingly popular in recent years. The common purpose of gamification is to enhance one's motivation and engagement to certain activities. Gamification has been commonly understood as the use of game elements in non-game context. In this paper, we propose a divide between the process and the experience of gamification. This paper is the first to propose such division and the results demonstrate its necessity. Gamification exists also in many exercise applications. The purpose of this study is to explore how the use of an exercise application affects users' exercise motivation and behaviour by concentrating especially on the role of gamification in terms of these effects. Empirically, the study is based on 11 qualitative interviews. The results show that the use of an exercise application can enhance the awareness of one's physical activity and progress, and in many cases it can also increase one's motivation to be physically active. Gamification is found to have potential impact on exercise motivation, although individual differences occur.
... Amongst mobile and ubiquitous computing research, the design of wellness applications has been quite intensively addressed. Examples of research in the area include persuasive and playful UI design [1,2], user experiences with outdoor sport tracking [3], and enhancing sports experiences with social cues [4]. In this paper, we approach the area by presenting design reflections on current commercial mobile UI design trends, and present our approach to the design of a service concept which goes beyond the scope of currently available services. ...
... Whereas specialized equipment set-ups are used in both research and commercial sectors, mobile phone based wellness applications are very popular amongst large user groups. Research on mobile phone related wellness topics has been extensive, e.g., Ahtinen et al. [3] present a user study on tracking outdoor sports with a mobile phone application. The results report that the form factor of a mobile phone was found sometimes challenging, although its benefits include that people did carry it around anyway, easing its integration to the sports activity. ...
In this paper, we report our findings charting the user interfaces (UI) design trends of current mobile phone wellness applications (n = 39), and report e.g. that whereas features related to sharing are already quite common, conversational UIs and gamification still play a minor role. In addition, we present the service design based development of future concepts for ubiquitous wellness services and UIs, and evaluate the concepts in an online survey based user study with 89 participants. The salient findings show that concepts that were embedded into everyday life routines and which contained clearly presented interpretation of the data were the most appreciated.
... Conceptually, this is consistent with a multiple lives metaphor, where user's leave the app, are absent for a long time, and then return as if they are a new user. Thus, we will use "life" to refer to an individual active period, use "lifetime" to refer to the duration of [1,5] an active period, and use "life index" to refer to a user's n-th active period. In the rest of the paper, we show how this multiple lives paradigm affects health tracking app usage 2 . ...
... This work studies user engagement and re-engagement patterns after long periods of inactivity in the context of activity tracking applications. We extend previous work (e.g., [1,5,7,27,35,38,47]) by discovering that users regularly re-engage after long periods of inactivity structuring user engagement into multiple lives with distinct characteristics. We demonstrate that these multiple lives are driven by user intent and external influences. ...
Mobile health applications that track activities, such as exercise, sleep, and diet, are becoming widely used. While these activity tracking applications have the potential to improve our health, user engagement and retention are critical factors for their success. However, long-term user engagement patterns in real-world activity tracking applications are not yet well understood. Here we study user engagement patterns within a mobile physical activity tracking application consisting of 115 million logged activities taken by over a million users over 31 months. Specifically, we show that over 75% of users return and re-engage with the application after prolonged periods of inactivity, no matter the duration of the inactivity. We find a surprising result that the re-engagement usage patterns resemble those of the start of the initial engagement period, rather than being a simple continuation of the end of the initial engagement period. This evidence points to a conceptual model of multiple lives of user engagement, extending the prevalent single life view of user activity. We demonstrate that these multiple lives occur because the users have a variety of different primary intents or goals for using the app. We find evidence for users being more likely to stop using the app once they achieved their primary intent or goal (e.g., weight loss). However, these users might return once their original intent resurfaces (e.g., wanting to lose newly gained weight). Based on insights developed in this work, including a marker of improved primary intent performance, our prediction models achieve 71% ROC AUC. Overall, our research has implications for modeling user re-engagement in health activity tracking applications and has consequences for how notifications, recommendations as well as gamification can be used to increase engagement.
... The tracking of sports performance benefited from a period of accelerated technological development, stimulated by a highly competitive market and technological research projects being financed worldwide (MYERS, 1998). One example is data tracking devices that use Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies and inertial sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, magnetometer and compass to collect data, providing information on the performance and body health during physical activity through a mobile app (AHTINEN et al., 2008;GUO et al., 2013;OH;LEE, 2015). ...
... In sports, UX Design has been widely used in the development of products such as smartwatches and also services, through mobile apps and websites (AHTINEN et al., 2008;PILLONI et al., 2013;SAHAR et al., 2014). Many sportswear companies, such as Nike (DIAS, 2014), have created a context of use that involves more than one type of https://doi.org/10. ...
... Consolvo et al. 2005), social context such as the number or nature of relationship of people that are in close proximity or participate with in a conversation (e.g. Hudson et al. 2002), the mode of transit (Froehlich et al. 2009), or mode of conversation (Ter Hofte 2007), or to inquire into participants' experiences, such as their mental engagement within an activity (Danninger, Kluge, and Stiefelhagen 2006), concentration (Chen 2006), satisfaction (Grandhi and Jones 2010), mood and emotional states (Morris and Guilak 2009), experienced stress (Pielot et al. 2011), experience of interpersonal connectedness (Dey and de Guzman 2006); their attitudes towards behaviours or events such as being interrupted (Nagel, Hudson, and Abowd 2004), disclosing information to relevant others (Consolvo et al. 2005), or being video recorded (Nguyen et al. 2009); their motivations for exhibited behaviours such as charging one's mobile phone (Banerjee et al. 2007), handling incoming calls (Grandhi 2008), posting information on social networking sites (Mancini et al. 2009), tracking the location of family members (Mancini et al. 2011); or to ask them to make cognitive judgments, such as judging the relevance or usefulness of an advert (Sala, Partridge, and Jacobson 2007), ranking the features of the product under use (Ahtinen et al. 2008), making credibility assessment of provided information (Rieh et al. 2010), or forming judgments of the outcome of an undertaken activity (Mancini et al. 2011), or one's self-efficacy on the sampled activity (Ara et al. 2009). ...
... Response rates reported in different studies have varied considerably, ranging from as low as 17% (Fischer and Benford 2009) to as high as 92% (Lee, Seo, and Lee 2010). Some researchers have reported varying response rates depending on the sampled day with weekdays displaying higher response rate (63%) than days of the weekend (55%) (Mihalic and Tscheligi 2007), or the type of questions with qualitative ones, requiring free-text responses, displaying lower response rate (73%) as opposed to quantitative such as scales and selection tasks (89%) (Ahtinen et al. 2008). Klasnja et al. (2008) suggested that a sampling frequency of five to eight times per day may yield an optimal balance of recall and annoyance, while sampling at predetermined times is preferred by participants over random as interruptions can be anticipated. ...
Despite the recent increase in interest in the experience sampling method (ESM), researchers have repeatedly criticised the high burden and levels of interruption that it imposes on participants, and alternative cost-effective methods, such as the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), have been adopted by the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community. In this paper, we review the use of ESM and DRM in the HCI field and argue for a new paradigm called Technology-Assisted Reconstruction (TAR), according to which passively logged data of users’ behaviours are used in assisting the later reconstruction of experiences and behaviours. We discuss five methods of Technology-Assisted Reconstruction that we have developed in our past work and conclude with a framework that highlights three directions for Technology-Assisted Reconstruction.
... Thus, it is evident that people should be encouraged and motivated to maintain their mobility behavior. In recent years, a number of mobile devices and applications that aim at supporting people in their athletic endeavors and other physical activities have emerged and these applications, with various tracking features, encourage people to exercise more (Ahtinen et al., 2008). These exercise applications provide opportunities for personalized health services, which make use of digital data in proactive and personalized ways (Häkkilä et al., 2015). ...
... Staying healthy, socializing, and achieving certain goals are key factors that motivate young adults to be active (Capel et al., 2015). Social sharing was found not to be a key motivator, which is consistent with findings in Ahtinen et al. (2008), as most of the participants did not want to/feel the need to share their exercise logs with other people or on online social platforms. The participants were primarily motivated to exercise for health reasons and even though some did not exercise consistently, they considered exercise to be an important part of their overall wellbeing. ...
Technology supporting motivation for physical activity has been a common theme for researchers and companies during the last decade. Mobile devices and applications with diverse features provide novel and personalized ways to motivate users for healthier lifestyles. Features like goal orientation and self-monitoring are common for activity and emotion tracking applications, and lately there has been interest also in the use of narratives. Consequently, in this study we evaluate through a qualitative study how narratives are used to motivate physical activity. We analyze both user and system-specific characteristics using nexus analysis and conclude with three techniques for personalizing narratives.
... Prior research has shown that the usage of sports and wellness technologies can have positive effects on the motivation towards exercise (e.g., Ahtinen et al., 2008;Bravata et al., 2007). In recent years, these technologies have become a part of everyday life for more and more people. ...
This study examines the habits of playing and the reasons for not playing digital exercise games (i.e., exergames), concentrating especially on the differences between four different age groups of players and non-players. Exergames can be considered an important and interesting research topic as they can be used to motivate people to do more exercise and, consequently, to improve their health and well-being. There are also potentially significant age differences in how these games are perceived. The study is based on analysing an online survey sample of 3,036 Finnish consumers by using contingency tables, the Pearson’s χ2 tests of independence, and the Cramér’s V coefficients. The results of the analysis reveal 11 main reasons for not playing exergames as well as several age differences especially in the reasons for not playing exergames but also in the habits of playing exergames.
... Existing research has explored interactive computing applications in outdoor sports in general [1] and investigated interactive computing in the context of hiking [5], climbing [3,4], running [2], and cycling [6]. Technology can be not only used to track and share outdoor experiences but also to facilitate solitude by providing guidance on how to avoid other people [5]. ...
Interactive computing has impacted how people experience outdoor recreation. Nevertheless, the role of interactive computing in outdoor recreation can be complicated. Some people engage in outdoor recreation precisely to avoid distractions associated with pervasive interactive computing. Others use interactive computing to create, enhance or share outdoor recreation experiences. In this SIG, participants will discuss research questions and foundational theories that might guide future work related to interactive computing in outdoor recreation. The discussion will range from engineering issues to research methods. Attendees will have opportunities to stay connected after the SIG.
... Mobile phones, especially the so called smart phones, are an interesting and practical platform for wellness technologies because of their form factor, mobility and connectivity features. Ahtinen et al. [3] report that one of the key benefits the users saw in a mobile phone wellness tracking app was that integrating the sports tracking to daily routines was easy as they already carried the phone with them anyway. Research has introduced numerous mobile phone application concepts, which aim to motivate people for physical exercise. ...
... With this in mind, today's electronic devices become obsolete quickly giving way to increasingly advanced technologies, for example devices used to track data, using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and inertial sensors such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, compass and magnetometer. For physical activity, they can provide information on performance and body health through statistical data [4][5][6]. ...
This research aimed to identify and analyse which tools have the greatest potential for measuring the user experience throughout the practice of recreational surfing. The method adopted to gather information was a systematic review of literature on the user experience in surfing. After analysing the selected articles, the tools with the greatest potential for measurement were highlighted. The results have shown that there are several ways to measure the user experience in different sports and in surfing. This led to the construction of a table with the potential tools for measuring the user experience on recreational surfing, highlighting their main features, their positive and negative aspects and the justification of their possible use. In the results, the following tools stood out above all the others: GPS, accelerometer and gyroscope to measure physiological variables; and the affective diary and semi-structured interviews to measure the psychological variables of the user experience.
... New interaction technology can be used to bring people to defined places to enjoy the same experiences [2] or to facilitate solitude by providing guidance on how to avoid other people [7]. Sports tracking [1], for example, has been suggested for climbing [4,5,6] and backcountry skiing [3]. The relation of performance and experience of sports watch usage has been studied in runners [9] indicating that wearable technology can improve both performance and the experience. ...
Mobile and wearable computing has great potential to support alpine outdoor sport activities. This includes, but is not limited to, rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, paraglid-ing, and skiing. Interestingly, technology for tracking, monitoring and supporting sport activities is broadly used in sports like running or cycling, but has not reached the top of the mountains yet. Nevertheless, such technologies could support people in many mountain scenarios such as activity tracking, navigation, or emergency support. Technologies and applications for mountaineers can learn from ubiquitous computing research in many ways to provide more joyful, motivating and safer outdoor experiences. This workshop addresses the promises and challenges that arise, when UbiComp technologies are applied to alpine activities. During this two day workshop the participants will present their positions and research, followed by a hands-on experience on current technology during a field trip.
... Mobile phones have been a popular device in tracking user's physical activity. Typically, mobile phones are carried along as a default practice, they nowadays include a set of different sensors, and they provide the user interface functionality to browse the collected data [1]. Mobile phone app stores include a vast number of health and wellness applications. ...
In the area of wellness and health, people are currently logging and monitoring an increasing amount of information of their everyday lives. The visualization of the logged data is currently typically presented in a mobile phone app. Here, we present our ongoing research on physical visualizations of sleep data, monitored with a wearable sensor. Our aim is to create tangible artifacts where the data has been integrated to the design in an aesthetic way, and hence provide information appliances that people can reflect upon.
... Ojala [14] discussed motivations for tracking and sharing details of training routines and physical exercises in online sports communities. Prior work showed that social sharing contributes to the overall user experience, enjoyment of workouts [1,13], and can be a powerful motivator for health activities [12,17]. Curmi et al. [3] discovered that sharing real-time physiological data (e.g. ...
Online social networks have made the sharing of personal experiences with others -- mostly in form of photos and comments -- a common activity. At the same time, an ever increasing number of dedicated sport tracking apps on our smartphones allow us to record statistical and biometric parameters from our workouts and, subsequently, share them with family, friends, and other followers. However, it is unclear if the available set of tracking parameters (such as an average speed, or calories burnt during a sports activity) is expressive enough when it comes to sharing in different sports. In our ongoing meta-study across three outdoor mountain sports, we have investigated whether those tracking apps meet the actual sharing requirements of amateur skiers, climbers, and trail runners. Ultimately, we aim to identify both universal and sport-specific needs for sharing. In this paper, we discuss our initial insights.
... Earlier research has especially addressed mobile phones as a tool for supporting wellness and physical exercise. Tacking outdoor sports with a mobile phone's integrated sensors has been found convenient, e.g., as users state that they carry the phone with them anyway [1]. Also playful design is often utilized [4]. ...
This paper presents a study on people's preferences with wearable wellness devices. The results are based on an online survey (n=84), where people assessed different features in wearable wellness devices. Our salient findings show that the highest rated features were the comfort of wearing the device and long battery lifetime. Altogether, factors related to the form factor and industrial design were emphasized, whereas social sharing features attracted surprisingly little attention.
... Each MA questionnaire asked the main participant to report their location, activity, and emotion over the immediately preceding hour, in that order; and that person's peer-group members were asked for the same information about the main participant, based either on direct knowledge or on guesswork. To mitigate the response burden (e.g., [1]), we included predefned options for location and activity. As our recruitment pool composes mostly students, during a pilot study, we adjusted the options for location and activity by adding frequent responses they provided us with, such as library. ...
... In such a context, technologies easing environmental challenges and reducing the required technical skills are perceived as cheating and thus strongly discouraged, while technologies aimed at recording the performance are welcomed. Similarly, Ahtinen et al. (2008) noticed that applications in the form of a logger or personal diary for tracking physical performance would be welcomed because they allow outdoor sportspeople to challenge themselves over time. The will to gain all the necessary competencies to face an outdoor sports adventure was also at the root of the reluctance that Mencarini et al. (2019) found when introducing wearable devices in climbing. ...
In this paper, we present a qualitative study on speleology that aims to widen the current understanding of people's practices in Nature and identify a design space for technology that supports such practices. Speleology is a practice based on the discovery, study, and dissemination of natural cavities. Speleologists are amateur experts who often collaborate with scientists and local institutions to understand the geology, hydrology, and biology of a territory. Their skills are at the same time physical, technical, and theoretical; this is why speleology is defined as a 'sporting science'. Being at the boundary between outdoor adventure sports and citizen science, speleology is an interesting case study for investigating the variety and complexity of activities carried out in the natural context. We interviewed 15 experienced speleologists to explore their goals, routines, vision of the outdoors, and attitude towards technology. From our study, it emerged that i) the excitement of discovery and the unpredictability of an explorative trip are the strongest motivations for people to engage in speleology; ii) physical skilfulness is a means for knowledge generation; iii) the practice is necessarily collective and requires group coordination. From these findings, an ambivalent attitude towards technology emerged: on the one hand, the scientific vocation of speleology welcomes technology supporting the development of knowledge; on the other hand, aspects typical of adventure sports lead to resistance to technology facilitating the physical performance. We conclude the article by presenting design considerations for devices supporting speleology, as well as a few reflections on how communities of speleologists can inspire citizen science projects.
... Other studies, such as [11], do not link user engagement to a feature offered by a product, but consider its capability to inspire more frequent, active, and intense interactions, by studying ways to keep users' interest. User engagement has been studied also by monitoring the experience of the users with a product, by analyzing their feedback over time [8], by studying the generated curiosity [14], or by providing quality data and information to avoid abandonment [13]. IJsselsteijn et al. [17] propose a study on intrinsic motivation enhancement; the research is based on an experiment with a virtual coach system and users that cycled on a stationary bike. ...
Nowadays, the use of mobile applications and wearable technologies to support and encourage an active lifestyle has become widespread. Several studies put in evidence that the usage of these kinds of support has to be monitored by high-qualified figures, to favor a safe and along-term adherence to training routines. In order to investigate the impact of these professionals, this work sets out to provide an overview and an evaluation of an e-coaching ecosystem specifically designed for runners. The platform supports and guides people towards an active lifestyle by stimulating their motivation to exercise through the engagement provided by the interactions between users and human trainers. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of the support offered by the human trainers and the engagement of the users. The results show that the support of human qualified trainers is crucial. Users tend to be more engaged to train when their trainings are developed and remotely supervised by a human coach. This has resulted in more workout sessions performed with respect to users exercising by following standard or self-made routines without direct professional supervision. Our findings show that e-coaching systems should develop their coaching protocols always taking into account the effectiveness of the support of qualified professionals over completely automated approaches.
... Recent research on personal informatics [47] discussed emergent digital sharing practices. People share their physical activity data with tracking devices and smartphone apps to motivate themselves [57,76], to create and maintain social ties [14,55,57], to compete with peers [3,63], and to get guidance and feedback [63]. Similar to location sharing, the sensitivity of personal biophysical data (e.g., heart rate) raises issues of safety and security, especially when disclosed indiscriminately [57,63,66,67]. ...
Sharing personal digital information online has been a common activity for many years. However, the recent rise of sharing economy services has since expanded the set of "things" one can share. How does the sharing of such physical artifacts differ from "traditional" sharing practices of photos and status updates? This paper attempts to consolidate the existing body of work on both sharing personal digital content (e.g., social networking) and personal physical artifacts (e.g., apartment, car sharing), and attempts to identify both commonalities and differences between them. We summarize existing research on the diversity of shared content, users' motivations to share, audience management, privacy & trust issues, and user experience requirements. We also conduct 16 semi-structured interviews with both design practitioners and sharing economy domain experts to formulate a set of design implications for devising novel sharing economy services.
... Furthermore, the gamification concept could be more intensely exploited for motivation. The gamification concept is increasingly used in many areas, partly also for its motivational qualities [46]. A more thorough integration into sports tracking applications may be a worthwhile path to raise runner's motivation to engage in running and to increase endurance during the exercise. ...
In the last years, a large number of sport and fitness applications for smartphones were developed for supporting a healthy lifestyle by not only encouraging people to follow a balanced diet but also to motivate them to engage in physical activities. In particular running applications received increasing attention in research in recent years. In this paper, we analyze fourteen commercial running tracking applications concerning their functionalities to identify which motivation strategies are supported and also to identify possible directions for future research. For this purpose we concentrate on the three most popular motivation strategies that are usually used for sport and fitness applications: music and audio feedback, visualization, as well as competition and comparison with others.
... The use of technology has also expanded to the nature context. It is common to track our routes and physical activity [1], or use mobile apps navigation that take us to points of interests as part of a game (Figure 1) or on hiking tracks [3]. Technology can also be used to bridge between different groups, such as indigenous or rural inhabitants [2]. ...
Being in nature is typically regarded to be calming, relaxing and purifying. When in nature, people often seek to be mobile through physical activity such as hiking. But also, nature provides an opportunity for meditative, mindful or inspiring experiences remote from urban everyday life. Mobile Technologies such as sports tracking technologies, electronic tourist guides, mobile phone integrated cameras and omnipresent social media access, have potential to both enhance and disrupt a user's interaction with and experience of nature. This MobileHCI workshop follows on from the first successful NatureCHI workshop by focusing on the challenges associated with the design of mobile technologies that support unobtrusive interaction in nature.
... In Mobile HCI and UbiComp, wearable technology has been explored in the context of sports. Ahtinen et al. [1] studied outdoor sports tracking in general. A large body of research investigates running (see Jensen and Muller [5] for an overview). ...
Wearable sports technology such as fitness trackers, smart watches or heart rate sensors has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives. This technology enables even recreational athletes to keep track of their workouts in a comprehensive manner. Besides the general assumption that this technology improves motivation to exercise more often, it also enables the athlete to get a better understanding of her current fitness level. However, current technology is mainly focussed on (quantifiable) performance indicators such as mileage, pace, cadence, watts, heart rate, etc.
In this tutorial we aim to introduce wearable sports technologies that provide real-time support to athletes while exercising. Topics of interest range from engineering problems to research methods as they apply in the context of mobile and ubiquitous sports technologies.
... New interaction technology can be used to bring people to defined places to enjoy the same experiences [2] or to facilitate solitude by providing guidance on how to avoid other people [7]. Sports track- ing [1], for example, has been suggested for climbing [4,5,6] and backcountry skiing [3]. The relation of performance and experience of sports watch usage has been studied in runners [9] indicating that wearable technology can improve both performance and the experience. ...
Mobile and wearable computing has great potential to support alpine outdoor sport activities. This includes, but is not limited to, rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, and skiing. Interestingly, technology for tracking, monitoring and supporting sport activities is broadly used in sports like running or cycling, but has not reached the top of the mountains yet. Nevertheless, such technologies could support people in many mountain scenarios such as activity tracking, navigation, or emergency support. Technologies and applications for mountaineers can learn from ubiquitous computing research in many ways to provide more joyful, motivating and safer outdoor experiences.
This workshop is building on the ideas and findings of the successful UbiMount '16 workshop and aims to further explore the newly established research direction of ubiquitous computing in the mountains. During this one day workshop the participants will present their positions and research, followed by a demo session and group exercises.
... By interviews they identified seven main categories that motivated them to use the online communities. Outdoor sports tracking [1], for example, has been suggested for climbing [5,7,8] and backcountry skiing [3]. ...
Wearable sports technology such as fitness trackers or smart watches has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives, resulting in a vast collection of recorded routes. This technology now enables new forms of tracking and sharing outdoor adventures, that go beyond prosaic descriptions and photographs of the tour. Existing web mapping services and online tour diaries already allow mountaineers an improved preparation of tours but it remains still a time-consuming and cumbersome task. In this paper we introduce the concept of pioneers in outdoor activities. The proposed concept lets people define their pioneers, which are other ambitious athletes who are well known and trusted experts of the area. Using the segments of their tracks and other personal preferences (e.g. length, elevation and difficulty) a personalized route that is based on the pioneers' activities is generated and recommended to the user.
... However, when these features were incorporated, the social sharing with familiar users (i.e., family, friends, or colleagues) of eHealth increases the levels of physical activity (Consolvo et al., 2006). When it comes to people who are not familiar, the results reflect a phenomenon called "awkward, " with users asking themselves "why anyone would be interested in their workout" (Ahtinen et al., 2008). Regarding sharing in social networks with familiar or strangers, users sometimes also felt disappointment when they did not receive reactions from the familiar ones and that sharing results with strangers impacted negatively their motivations toward physical activity (Munson and Consolvo, 2012). ...
Objectives
The aims of this research were (1) to compare the levels of physical activity of eHealth users and non-users, (2) to determine the effects of these technologies on motivations, and (3) to establish the relationship that could exist between psychological constructs and physical activity behaviors.Methods
This cross-sectional study involved 569 adults who responded to an online questionnaire during confinement in France. The questions assessed demographics, usage of eHealth for exercise and physical activity, and behavioral levels. The questionnaire also measured the constructs of Social Cognitive Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and automaticity facets toward eHealth for exercise and physical activity.ResultsParticipants who were users of eHealth for exercise and physical activity presented significantly higher levels of vigorous physical activity and total physical activity per week than non-users (p < 0.001). The chi-square test showed significant interactions between psychological constructs toward eHealth (i.e., self-efficacy, behavioral attitudes, intentions, and automaticity) and physical activity levels (all interactions were p < 0.05). Self-efficacy was significantly and negatively correlated with walking time per week. Concerning the automaticity facets, efficiency was positive and significantly correlated with vigorous physical activity levels per week (p < 0.05). Then, regressions analyses showed that self-efficacy and automaticity efficiency explained 5% of the variance of walking minutes per week (ß = −0.27, p < 0.01) and vigorous physical activity per week (ß = 0.20, p < 0.05), respectively.Conclusion
This study has shown that people during confinement looked for ways to stay active through eHealth. However, we must put any technological solution into perspective. The eHealth offers possibilities to stay active, however its benefits and the psychological mechanisms affected by it remains to be demonstrated: eHealth could be adapted to each person and context.
... In such a context, technologies easing environmental challenges and reducing the required technical skills are perceived as cheating and thus strongly discouraged, while technologies aimed at recording the performance are welcomed. Similarly, Ahtinen et al. (2008) noticed that applications in the form of a logger or personal diary for tracking physical performance would be welcomed because they allow outdoor sportspeople to challenge themselves over time. The will to gain all the necessary competencies to face an outdoor sports adventure was also at the root of the reluctance that Mencarini et al. (2019) found when introducing wearable devices in climbing. ...
In this paper, we present a qualitative study on speleology that aims to widen the current understanding of people's practices in Nature and identify a design space for technology that supports such practices. Speleology is a practice based on the discovery, study, and dissemination of natural cavities. Speleologists are amateur experts who often collaborate with scientists and local institutions to understand the geology, hydrology, and biology of a territory. Their skills are at the same time physical, technical, and theoretical; this is why speleology is defined as a ‘sporting science’. Being at the boundary between outdoor adventure sports and citizen science, speleology is an interesting case study for investigating the variety and complexity of activities carried out in the natural context. We interviewed 15 experienced speleologists to explore their goals, routines, vision of the outdoors, and attitude towards technology. From our study, it emerged that i) the excitement of discovery and the unpredictability of an explorative trip are the strongest motivations for people to engage in speleology; ii) physical skilfulness is a means for knowledge generation; iii) the practice is necessarily collective and requires group coordination. From these findings, an ambivalent attitude towards technology emerged: on the one hand, the scientific vocation of speleology welcomes technology supporting the development of knowledge; on the other hand, aspects typical of adventure sports lead to resistance to technology facilitating the physical performance. We conclude the article by presenting design considerations for devices supporting speleology, as well as a few reflections on how communities of speleologists can inspire citizen science projects.
... The number and popularity of these apps are dramatically increasing, owing to the cadence adoption of smartphones [5] and due to other benefits, including their effectiveness [6], accessibility [7] and convenience [8] not only for end users, but also for developers who are encouraged to create apps rather than web-based services [5]. Owing to this popularity, apps have shown tremendous diversity in their content [5] ranging from commerce [9], education [10], medicine [11], gaming [12], sports [13] and more. Countless mobile apps run on different mobile devices (e.g. ...
Recent years have shown significantly pervasive interest in mobile applications (hereinafter “apps”). The number and popularity of these apps are dramatically increasing. Even though mobile apps are diverse, countless ones are available through many platforms. Some of these apps are not useful nor do they possess rich content, which benefits end users as expected, especially in medical-related cases. This research aims to review and analyze articles associated with medical app assessment across different platforms. This research also aimed to provide the best practices and identify the academic challenges, motivations and recommendations related with quality assessments. In addition, a methodological approach followed in previous research in this domain was also discussed to give some insights for future comers with what to expect. We systematically searched articles on topics related to medical app assessment. The search was conducted on five major databases, namely, Science Direct, Springer, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore and PubMed from 2009 to September 2019. These indices were considered sufficiently extensive and reliable to cover our scope of the literature. Articles were selected on the basis of our inclusion and exclusion criteria (n = 72). Medical app assessment is considered a major topic which warrants attention. This study emphasizes the current standpoint and opportunities for research in this area and boosts additional efforts towards the understanding of this research field.
... The next cut was based on app scores provided by previous users; those that scored below 3.5 over 5.0 were eliminated on account of low perceived credibility. Next, considering an app's possibilities for evoking happiness, from among different categorization methods for physical activity apps (Ahtinen et al., 2008;West et al., 2012;Kranz et al., 2012), we chose Ahtinen et al.'s (2008) because it concentrates on motivation and classifies the apps into four groups: personal trainer, logger, playful applications and games, and social applications. Finally, after categorizing our remaining apps, we ranked them based on their public ratings, and chose for our study the leading app in each category: Nike Training Club (personal trainer), Sports Abstract Many studies concentrate on the use of persuasive technology to encourage people for active lifestyles, yet it is a design challenge to create intrinsic motivation for users to increase or maintain healthy behaviour. ...
Many studies concentrate on the use of persuasive technology to encourage people for active lifestyles, yet it is a design challenge to create intrinsic motivation for users to increase or maintain healthy behaviour. Building upon the relationship between happiness and staying active, this paper presents design qualities perceived as a source of happiness. The study empirically examines data gathered from semi-structured, in-depth interviews of 20 people between the ages of 20 and 30. It applies content analysis method to analyze product qualities associated with happiness in relation to users’ short-term experiences with smart mobile applications. Bene ting from the theory of wellness, the paper explores the qualities of mobile physical activity apps and proposes possibilities for happiness.
... Technology use has also arisen when we are in nature -using navigation apps and digital maps, or taking selfies with smart phones at beautiful nature views, for example. Technological aids are also used e.g. when hunting with dogs [10] or tracking sports [1], and more concepts have been suggested e.g. for mountaineering [8] and backcountry skiing [7]. Technology can be used to bring people to defined places to enjoy the same experiences [6] or to facilitate solitude by providing guidance on how to avoid other people [9]. ...
Being in nature is typically regarded to be calming, relaxing and purifying. When in nature, people often seek physical activity like hiking, or meditative, mindful or inspiring experiences remote from the urban everyday life. However, the modern lifestyle easily extends technology use to all sectors of our everyday life, and e.g. the rise of sports tracking technologies, mobile phone integrated cameras and omnipresent social media access have contributed to technologies also arriving into the use context of nature. Also maps and tourist guides are increasingly smart phone or tablet based services. This workshop addresses the challenges that are related to interacting with technology in nature. The viewpoints cover, but are not limited to interaction design and prototyping, social and cultural issues, user experiences that aim for unobtrusive interactions with the technology with nature as the use context.
In our research, we explore the possibilities for combining digital 3D city representation with a wellness application, and introduce our demo that aims to make running in a gym more inspiring and motivating. We present a prototype, where the running exercise on a treadmill is converted to a distance on the local city map, and visualized in a 3D mirror world presentation of the city. The user leaves a personalized tag on the spot reached, and in addition to his achievement, is able to see the performance of other runners on the streets of the virtual world. We evaluated the system in the gym, where 32 people tried out the prototype. The application was perceived entertaining and interesting, and especially the ability to compare the results with earlier runners was perceived motivating.
Physical activity is known to help improve and maintain one's health. In particular, recreational running has become increasingly popular in recent years. Yet, lack of motivation often interferes with people's routines and thus may prohibit regular uptake. This is where running tracking applications are frequently used to overcome one's weaker self and offer support. While technology artifacts, such as sport watches or running applications, usually count as extrinsic drivers, they can also impact one's intrinsic motivation levels. The aim of this study was thus to investigate upon the motivational impact of distinct features found within applications specifically used for running. Focusing on the 22 most famous running applications, a semi-structured, problem-centered interview study with $n=15$ recreational runners showed that intrinsic motivation is stimulated from diverting runners, aiding them in their goal setting, decreasing their efforts, improving and sharing their run performance, allowing them to receive acknowledgements, as well as providing them with guidance, information, and an overall variety in their training routines.
Many people use physical activity tracking products to gather personal behavioral data, make better decisions, and make changes to their behavior. While the proliferation of new products on the market makes collecting personal data easier, how to help people engage with these products over a long period of time remains an open question. To uncover which features of physical activity tracking products lead to engaging experience, we conducted a study with people who use physical activity tracking products to support or track behavior change. We conducted baseline interviews and had participants interact with either a BodyMedia armband or a FitBit activity tracker. Participants rated their experience with the product daily for a period of four weeks and reflected on their engagement at the end of the study. Through synthesis and analysis of the study findings, we draw out four characteristics for engaging experience in physical activity tracking product use: connectivity, curiosity, personalization, and motivation.
The use of wearable technology will become significantly more prevalent in the coming years, with major companies releasing devices such as the Samsung Gear Fit. With sensors, such as pedometers and heart rate monitors, embedded in these devices it is possible to use them for fitness purposes. However, little is known about how wearable adopters actually use wearable and existing technologies during exercise. In an exploratory situated study of technology use and non-use in the context of the gym, fitness informatics adopters showed varied practices related to distraction, appropriating technology into their routines, and information needs. We discuss this variance in relation to individual differences and the impact of the physical nature of the gym. Although further research might show other influencing factors such as the social context, we make a case for the use of situated studies to uncover tensions that lead to use and non-use of technology that arise in the different unfolding situations of using wearables in everyday life, including at the gym, which is a surprisingly complex context.
The availability of contextually relevant information is often safety-critical while practicing extreme outdoor sports. Off-piste skiing is not an exception. This activity requires group communication and information sharing before, during, and after each descent. We are reporting on the results of an exploratory research study that we conducted with an experienced group of seven backcountry skiers. Using grounded theory methods to evaluate data from participants, we discovered that "Sharing" is one of the key pillars contributing to a positive skiing experience. This poster describes current information sharing practices that emerged from the data analysis. We also present several design ideas from our participants for mobile and wearable devices / services to assist backcountry winter activities in the stages of planning, execution and follow-up.
The amount of user-generated digital content in social media has exploded during recent years. Currently, it is easy to capture and produce versatile personal content, for example, activity data that is recorded with devices, such as heart rate monitors or the preference data of the music you listen to. A plethora of services exists for content sharing. Sharing digital content, such as images, audio, and video allows people to express themselves, create new contacts, strengthen ties with existing contacts, and to collaborate with other people. Social activities through content can create a sense of belonging and being part of a community. Digital content mediates social interaction through online services. For example, a shared video tells someone the story of an event that they could not be physically present at, and then shared exercise data might inform others of an interesting cycle route for a specific type of exercise. The sharing of traditional, personal digital content such as photos and videos has been widely studied, but recently it has become increasingly common to produce different types of content collaboratively and various services enable social interaction around such content – not just the sharing of it. The guidance for designers on how to build services to enable users to engage in these interactions naturally is still limited. To design better services, we need a better understanding of user activities together with the shared content and the collaborative practices that they form. Thus, this work focuses on novel types of user-generated digital content as well as the related activities, motivations, and user experiences.
This compound thesis contributes to the research field of human-computer interaction; more specifically, the user experience. The thesis contains findings from six user case studies, involving a total of 328 participants. Through the case studies, we identified the elements that contribute to the user experience of content-mediated interaction with various content types. The theoretical contribution of this work is the introduction of the concept of contentmediated interaction. This work identifies the different elements that affect content-mediated interaction, and builds a content-mediated interaction model. The work extends the knowledge of user activities and the related user experience with novel types of shared content and of the user’s motivation to participate in content-mediated interaction. As a practical outcome, the thesis presents design implications. The thesis first proposes that understanding content-mediated interaction helps to design better applications and services that support online social interaction. Second, this helps to evaluate and refine the existing services as well as understand the emerging new content types in the future. Understanding the underlying activities and motivations supports the creation of new interaction features, service concepts, and finally, identifying business prospects.
Physical activity is known to help improve and maintain one’s health. In particular, recreational running has become increasingly popular in recent years. Yet, lack of motivation often interferes with people’s routines and thus may prohibit regular uptake. This is where running tracking applications are frequently used to overcome one’s weaker self and offer support. While technology artifacts, such as sport watches or running applications, usually count as extrinsic drivers, they can also impact one’s intrinsic motivation levels. The aim of this study was thus to investigate upon the motivational impact of distinct features found within applications specifically used for running. Focusing on the 22 most famous running applications, a semi-structured, problem-centered interview study with n=15 recreational runners showed that intrinsic motivation is stimulated from diverting runners, aiding them in their goal setting, decreasing their efforts, improving and sharing their run performance, allowing them to receive acknowledgements, as well as providing them with guidance, information, and an overall variety in their training routines.
We present a functional prototype of an interactive illuminated snowboard, which was trialed in-the-wild. We discuss the challenges in prototyping and evaluating ubiquitous computing demos in-the-wild in the winter mountain context. Equipment related issues such as reduced battery capacity, and camera functionality at low temperatures are identified as particular problems. Prototype design should enable operation whilst wearing gloves, for example switching test modes, via motion gestures. The necessity to open prototype devices to make adjustment whilst in-the-wild should be avoided.
Digitaalisista mobiililaitteista on tullut myös käyttäjien hyvinvointia tukevia laitteita. Tutkielman tarkoituksena on kuvailla käyttäjien osallistamista palveluinnovaatioprosessin vaiheisiin sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelujen kontekstissa. Tutkimuksessa nostettiin esille käyttäjien rooli suunnittelijoina, mikä on uusi tapa osallistaa käyttäjiä kaikkiin innovaatioprosessin vaiheisiin. Tutkimuksessa sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelukonteksti on melko uusi, koska kuluttajasovellukset ovat vasta
kehitteillä. Tutkimuksessa konseptien kehittämisen vaiheessa käytetty roolileikkimisen menetelmä tuotti uutta tutkimustietoa, koska menetelmää ei ole juuri käytetty markkinointialan tuotekehityksen innovaatiokirjallisuudessa innovaatioiden kehityksessä. Tutkielman teoreettisessa viitekehyksessä esitetään toisessa luvussa tutkielman keskeiset käsitteet ja teoriat käyttäjien osallistamisen palveluinnovaatioprosessiin, palveluinnovaatiot ja prosessit, käytettävyystutkimus ja käyttäjäkokemuksen tutkimus. Teoreettinen viitekehys käsittelee kolmannessa luvussa sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelukontekstin käsitteet ja teoriat. Neljännessä luvussa käsitellään tutkimuksen menetelmien teoriat ja keskustellaan tutkimuksessa toteutetun empirian kanssa.
Tutkimuksen tieteenfilosofinen lähestymistapa on fenomenologinen, jossa tavoitteena on käyttäjien kokemusten kuvaaminen. Tutkimus noudatti toiminta-analyyttistä tutkimusotetta, tarkoituksenaan kuvata käyttäjien osallistamista sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelun palveluinnovaatioprosessiin syvällisesti ja kokonaisvaltaisesti. Tiedon hankinnan strategiaksi valittiin tapaustutkimus, jossa ”Mobiilivalmentaja” -hyvinvointipalvelukonseptin palveluinnovaatioprosessin yksilöllinen kuvaus,
vuoropuhelu ja monimenetelmäisyys loivat kokonaisvaltaisen tapaustutkimuksen.
Sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelun palveluinnovaatioprosessi jakautui kolmeen vaiheeseen: strateginen kehys, ideointivaihe ja konseptien kehitys. Strateginen kehittäminen käsitti johtavien käyttäjien valikoitumisen alkukyselyn myötä. Ideointivaihe käsitti yksin ideoinnin, pareittain ideoinnin ja ideoiden arvioinnin. Ryhmäkeskustelumenetelmä toimi keskeisenä ideoiden ja arviointien kartoittamisessa. Konseptien kehittämisvaiheessa käyttäjät näyttelivät kuinka he käyttäisivät Mobiilivalmentaja palvelua jokapäiväisessä elämässä. Roolileikkimisen menetelmä oli keskeinen konseptien suunnitteluvaiheessa, jossa
se toimi tutkijoiden ja käyttäjien dialogina suunnitteluprosessissa. Loppukysely toimi käyttäjien arviointina palveluinnovaatioprosessin vaiheista ja suunnittelumenetelmä valinnoista. Tutkielman keskeiseksi lopputulokseksi saatiin, että käyttäjien osallistaminen koko prosessiin toimii niin vuorovaikutusprosessina (asiakkaiden ja suunnittelijoiden välillä), oppimisprosessina (käyttäjistä ja markkinoista) ja käyttäjien piilevien tarpeiden kartoittamisena. Mielekkäänä jatkotutkimusmahdollisuutena olisi tutkia käyttäjien
pidempiaikaista käyttöä sekoitetun todellisuuden hyvinvointipalvelusta esimerkiksi (mobile probes and diaries) mobiilinen luotain ja päiväkirjamenetelmällä.
We investigate wearable presentation of tracked wellness data, and people’s perceptions and motivations for sharing it through a wearable display. Whilst online sharing is a common feature in wellness tracking solutions, the motivations and experiences of users to share tracked data in situ has not been widely studied. We created two functional prototypes – the hat tracker and the tracker badge – which we used as probes in two focus groups to elicit opinions on the content and format of wearable tracker displays. Complementing this, a study where participants used the hat tracker prototype in public locations provides insights on sharing in everyday life use contexts. We report that users appreciate the motivating nature of such displays, but favor the display of positive information. Leveraging prior work, we present a model describing the factors affecting users’ willingness to share tracked data via wearable displays, and highlight such displays’ potential for supporting behavior change.
In this paper we discuss design guidelines for game-based applications that motivate teenagers to do physical activity. We describe an application developed based on these guidelines and results from a user study we ran using this application. Finally, we discuss additional design guidelines that emerged from the user study. These guidelines include providing voiceover for text in the application, providing bonuses or rewards for accomplishing physical activity goals, and providing the functionality that let teenagers tailor the application to their physical activity needs. Future work will consist of improving the application based on the user study results and running a long-term study with the improved application.
This paper presents the approach and the outcome of a study, called where's-the-phone to identify characteristics of how mobile phones are carried whilst users are out and about in public spaces. A series of contextual interviews were conducted in public spaces of Helsinki, Milan and New York collecting 419 responses in total. The results show a strong tendency by gender, with females using bags and males using trouser pockets to place their mobile phones. Comments from participants suggested users did not place the phone wherever available, but rather considered many aspects, such as the convenience, tolerance to multiple postures, risk of theft, comfort, or impact to their appearance. We learn that bag users miss incoming alerts more often than with other carrying methods. Based on the outcome of the study, we discuss the challenges in designing mobile devices, in particular mobile phones
Recent advances in small inexpensive sensors, low-power processing, and activity modeling have enabled applications that use on-body sensing and machine learning to infer people's activities throughout everyday life. To address the growing rate of sedentary lifestyles, we have developed a system, UbiFit Garden, which uses these technologies and a personal, mobile display to encourage physical activity. We conducted a 3-week field trial in which 12 participants used the system and report findings focusing on their experiences with the sensing and activity inference. We discuss key implications for systems that use on-body sensing and activity inference to encourage physical activity. Author Keywords
Overweight and obesity are a global epidemic, with over one billion overweight adults worldwide (300+ million of whom are obese). Obesity is linked to several serious health problems and medical conditions. Medical experts agree that physical activity is critical to maintaining fitness, reducing weight, and improving health, yet many people have difficulty increasing and maintaining physical activity in everyday life. Clinical studies have shown that health benefits can occur from simply increasing the number of steps one takes each day and that social support can motivate people to stay active. In this paper, we describe Houston, a prototype mobile phone application for encouraging activity by sharing step count with friends. We also present four design requirements for technologies that encourage physical activity that we derived from a three- week long in situ pilot study that was conducted with women who wanted to increase their physical activity. Author Keywords
This study examines the acceptance and usability of an animated conversational agent designed to establish long-term relationships with older, mostly minority adult users living in urban neighborhoods. The agent plays the role of an exercise advisor who interacts with subjects daily for two months on a touch-screen computer installed in their homes for the study. Survey results indicate the eight subjects who completed the pilot study (aged 62-82) found the agent very easy to interact with, even though most of them had little or no previous experience using computers. Most subjects also indicated strong liking for and trust in the agent, felt that their relationship with the agent was more similar to a close friend than a stranger, and expressed a strong desire to continue working with the agent at the end of the study. These results were also confirmed through qualitative analysis of post-experiment debrief transcripts.
This paper presents a prototype implementation of a physically interactive fitness game called Shadow Boxer. The game is controlled by body movements and it utilizes a web camera to detect the player's movements. A user study was conducted to study the playability and the effectiveness of the game as an exercising method. The results showed that playing the game significantly increased the participants' heart rate and for most of the participants, the heart rate was at the optimal exercise level after playing the game. Thus, the game can be effectively used as an exercise method. Generally, the participants enjoyed playing the game and thought of it as a possible method for training. Additionally, the study revealed ideas for improving the game experience and the usability of the interface.
Abstract This paper explores the potential for use of an unaugmented,commodity,technology—the mobile phone— as a health promotion,tool. We describe a prototype application that tracks the daily exercise activities of people, using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to analyse GSM cell signal strength and visibility to estimate a user’s movement. In a short-term study of the prototype that shared activity information amongst groups of friends, we found that awareness encouraged reflection on, and increased motivation for, daily activity. The study raised concerns regarding the reliability of ANN-facilitated activ- ity detection in the ‘real world’. We describe some,of the details of the pilot study and introduce a promising,new approach,to activity detection that has been developed,in response to some of the issues raised by the pilot study, involving Hidden Markov Models (HMM), task modelling and,unsupervised,calibration. We conclude,with,our intended plans to develop the system further in order to carry out a longer-term clinical trial. Keywords,activityrecognition.context aware.
Johannes Schöning In this paper we present a novel conceptual design for a location-based service (LBS) for climbers. We focus on ideas for LBS in the vertical domain, combing concepts from augmented reality, mobile social applications and multimodal integration. We address problems such as merging paper maps and reality, hands-free interaction, communication in environments without infrastructures, and geosensor networks that provide information on weather and other relevant subjects.
We consider trails to be a document type of growing importance, authored in abundance as locative technologies become embedded in mobile devices carried by billions of humans. As these trail documents become annotated by communities of users, the resulting data sets can provide support for a host of services. In this paper we describe our sociotechnical exploration of the devices, scenarios, and end-user interactions that will come into play as these tools become widespread. We couch this work in a discussion of the sociological impact of a shift from hyperlinks to "hyperties" -- links that bridge the gap between computational media and physical world interactions. We describe a prototype hardware device for location and other sensor data capture. This device links to a complementary website for querying, sharing, and distributing the resulting route datasets. The web application allows users to find related community members via shared attributes of their contributed or annotated routes. These attributes may be generated in part by route analysis performed by systems for activity identification and classification.
Past research has established that, while self-reports of purchase intentions can predict behavior, various factors affect the strength of the intentions-behavior link. This article explores one such factor: the impact of merely measuring intent. Our specific question concerns the impact of measuring intent on subsequent purchase behavior. Prior research suggests a mere-measurement hypothesis: that merely measuring intent will increase subsequent purchase behavior. We also suggest a polarization hypothesis: that repeated intent questions will have a polarizing effect on behavior. The results reveal that the effect of merely asking intent to buy once is an increase in the subsequent purchase rate. The effect of repeatedly asking intent for those with low levels of intent is a decreased propensity to buy with repeated measurements. These two effects are reduced given prior experience with the product. The implications of these findings and opportunities for future research are discussed.
The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) assesses how people spend their time and how they experience the various activities and settings of their lives, combining features of time-budget measurement and experience sampling. Participants systematically reconstruct their activities and experiences of the preceding day with procedures designed to reduce recall biases. The DRM's utility is shown by documenting close correspondences between the DRM reports of 909 employed women and established results from experience sampling. An analysis of the hedonic treadmill shows the DRM's potential for well-being research.
Download link at: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/norbert.schwarz/day_reconstruction_method__time_use____well-being
This study examined whether giving activity feedback to obese, sedentary adults with Type 2 diabetes would improve their adherence to a home-based walking program. 49 subjects were recruited. Ten failed a treadmill cardiovascular test. Another 9 dropped out before the intervention, and 4 dropped out during the intervention. The remaining 26 adults (14 women, 12 men; age M = 48.1 yr., SD = 7.1) received behavioral counseling monthly for 3 mo. regarding exercise. All subjects wore a triaxial accelerometer during these 3 months. Randomly, half of the subjects were blind to the data from the accelerometers, i.e., no feedback, and had counseling based on their self-report diaries. The other half had access to the accelerometer data, got a computerized graph of their physical activity for the period between counseling sessions, and had counseling based on these objective data, i.e., feedback. The feedback group showed an increase in exercise over the 3 mo. The nonfeedback group showed an increase in activity at 1.5 mo. but reverted to their baseline exercise levels at 3 mo. However, analysis of variance showed there was at least an 8% probability that this effect was due to chance, so the hypothesis that feedback would improve exercise adherence could not be supported. Further studies with larger sample sizes and greater control of experimental conditions are needed to determine the utility of objective activity feedback.
Physical activity levels of girls decline dramatically during adolescence and may be a contributor to the increasing number of obese teens in the United States. Research has shown that social support is positively correlated with physical activity levels in adolescents, particularly girls. We present the findings from a three week field study of a mobile phone application designed to create a support group for physical activity within an existing social network of adolescent girls. Our findings suggest design considerations for technologies that encourage physical activity for this user group.
What factors motivate individuals to participate in sport or fitness activities? This question has been of great interest to researchers. However, most studies on motives have considered only a single or a few variables in their investigation. The purpose of this research is to explore the wide range of factors that motivate people to participate in a fitness activity, namely aerobics. To take into account the broad range of individual and social factors that influence participation in a fitness activity, social identity theory is the basis for a qualitative investigation. The findings that show motives for participation are divergent across groups of similar individuals. The motives that emerged were (a) the atmosphere of an aerobics class, (b) the physical and psychological benefits, (c) social ties related to aerobics, (d) social comparisons, (e) obsession with aerobics, and (f) the feelings participants associate with doing aerobics. A proposed framework of fitness participation is developed based on the findings that could serve as a foundation for future empirical studies.
This paper describes the design and evaluation of a wearable Personal Wellness Coach system that supports a range of activities including health data collection, interpretation, feedback and self-monitoring. We implemented a wearable computing platform consisting of an array of sensors and application software to motivate users to reach fitness goals and prevent harm in a real-time environment. Evaluation and testing were done on 65 users in four groups: students, health club members, ROTC members and Baby Boomer-age individuals. Comparing the Personal Wellness Coach against an existing exercise product, our results indicate that this system is an effective tool that is less intrusive and in some cases can perform like a personal trainer and help improve user efficiency.
Describes the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a research procedure that consists of asking individuals to provide systematic self-reports at random occasions during the waking hours of a normal week. Files created from sets of these self-reports from a sample of individuals become an archival file of daily experience. The ESM obtains information about the private as well as the public aspects of individuals' lives, secures data about behavioral and intrapsychic aspects of daily activity, and obtains reports about people's experiences as they occur, thereby minimizing the effects of reliance on memory and reconstruction. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reviews clinical and field studies of goal setting. Results indicate that specific, difficult goals lead to better performance than vague or easy goals; short-term goals can help achieve long-term goals; goals affect performance by affecting effort, persistence, and attention and by motivating strategy development; progress feedback is necessary for goal setting to work; goals must be accepted if they are to affect performance; goal attainment is facilitated by a plan of action; and competition is a form of goal setting. Implications of these findings for athletics are discussed. In addition, suggestions are made regarding setting goals for both practice and game situations; setting goals for different elements of athletic skill as well as for strength and stamina; using goals to increase self-confidence; and improving performance by increasing task difficulty independently of goal difficulty. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper presents a novel way of using real-time heart rate information to control a physically interactive biathlon (skiing and shooting) computer game. Instead of interfacing the game to an exercise bike or other equipment with speed output, the skiing speed is directly proportional to heart rate. You can freely choose the form of physical exercise, which makes it easier for people with different skill levels and backgrounds to play together. The system can be used with any exercise machine or form. To make playing meaningful instead of simply exercising as hard as you can, a high heart rate impedes the shooting part of the game by making the sight less steady. This balancing mechanism lets the player try out different tactics, varying from very slow skiing and sharp shooting to fast skiing and random shooting. The game has been evaluated in a user study with eight participants. The results show that heart rate interaction is fun and usable interaction method.
Design activity has recently attempted to embrace designing the user experience. Designers need to demystify how we design for user experience and how the products we design achieve specific user experience goals. This paper proposes an initial framework for understanding experience as it relates to user-product interactions. We propose a system for talking about experience, and look at what influences experience and qualities of experience. The framework is presented as a tool to understand what kinds of experiences products evoke.
Sports and fitness are increasingly attracting the interest of computer science researchers as well as companies. In particular, recent mobile devices with hardware graphics acceleration offer new, still unexplored possibilities. This paper investigates the use of mobile guides in fitness activities, proposing the Mobile Personal Trainer (MOPET) application. MOPET uses a GPS device to monitor user's position during her physical activity in an outdoor fitness trail. It provides navigation assistance by using a fitness trail map and giving speech directions. Moreover, MOPET provides motivation support and exercise demonstrations by using an embodied virtual trainer, called Evita. Evita shows how to correctly perform the exercises along the trail with 3D animations and incites the user. To the best of our knowledge, our project is the first to employ a mobile guide for fitness activities. The effects of MOPET on motivation, as well as its navigational and training support, have been experimentally evaluated with 12 users. Evaluation results encourage the use of mobile guides and embodied virtual trainers in outdoor fitness applications.
The experience players get from playing a computer game depends on how well the story and the action can capture players attention. Sometimes people immerse to the game environment so strongly that they forget their actual physical surroundings and feel as they are part of the game environment. In the Virku (Virtual Fitness Centre) research project we developed a fitness computer game which aims at making the exercise session more motivating and rich in experiences. The user is exercising while he is exploring new surroundings or playing a fitness game in VE. In Virku the VE is generated from map information. The bodily user interface was selected because it seems that it can add to users sense of presence and it is suitable for exercising purposes. The Virku interface is a combination of an exercise bicycle, a computer and a screen. Nine users pilot-tested the fitness game.
To evaluate ubiquitous computing technologies, which may be embedded in the environment, embedded in objects, worn, or carried by the user throughout everyday life, it is essential to use methods that accommodate the often unpredictable, real-world environments in which the technologies are used. This article discusses how we have adapted and applied traditional methods from psychology and human-computer interaction, such as Wizard of Oz and Experience Sampling, to be more amenable to the in situ evaluations of ubiquitous computing applications, particularly in the early stages of design. The way that ubiquitous computing technologies can facilitate the in situ collection of self-report data is also discussed. Although the focus is on ubiquitous computing applications and tools for their assessment, it is believed that the in situ evaluation tools that are proposed will be generally useful for field trials of other technology, applications, or formative studies that are concerned with collecting data in situ.
Conducted 6 experiments with 143 healthy sedentary adults who had been unsuccessful in starting or maintaining an exercise regimen to identify behavioral and cognitive procedures that would enhance Ss' adherence to a 3 day/wk exercise (walking/jogging) program. Procedures evaluated included feedback and praise during exercise, various goal-setting strategies, lottery reinforcement, cognitive strategies during the exercise, and relapse-prevention training. Class attendance, exercise program adherence, and fitness data were collected, and self-reported 3-mo follow-up data were also obtained. Results suggest the importance of social support, feedback, and praise during exercise; flexibility in exercise-goal setting; and distraction-based cognitive strategies. Findings are integrated and discussed in terms of the importance and difficulties of shaping and maintaining exercise behaviors. (58 ref)
A large fitness center setting was used to test the effects of a computer feedback system (FitLinxx Interactive Fitness Network) on adherence to exercise, attendance, and dropout. Healthy mixed-sex adult participants were evaluated on their maintenance of newly prescribed exercise. The control group (n = 71) used standard exercise tracking and feedback during exercise sessions. The treatment group (n = 93) used a specifically designed computer-based system that provided enhanced tracking, goal setting, and feedback. Analysis indicated significantly higher attendance and adherence in the treatment group who also had fewer dropouts by month, a larger number of days before dropout, and less over-all dropout (46%) over the 8 months tested. Discussion concerning the application of computerized feedback systems for maximizing clients' adherence within physical and cardiac rehabilitation and general fitness settings was given. Additional direct testing with different sample types and motivation was suggested.
A sustainable pattern of participation in physical activity is important in the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. College students are in transition from an active youth to a more sedentary adult behavior pattern.
We assessed self-reported physical activity and other characteristics in a sample of 2,729 male and female students (median age was 20 years) recruited from representative courses and year levels at four Australian College campuses. They were categorized as sufficiently or insufficiently active, using estimates of energy expenditure (kcal/week) derived from self-reported physical activity. Personal factors (self-efficacy, job status, enjoyment), social factors (social support from family/friends), and environmental factors (awareness of facilities, gym membership) were also assessed.
Forty-seven percent of females and 32% of males were insufficiently active. For females, the significant independent predictors of being insufficiently active were lower social support from family and friends, lower enjoyment of activity, and not working. For males, predictors were lower social support from family and friends, lower enjoyment of activity, and being older.
Factors associated with physical activity participation (particularly social support from family and friends) can inform physical activity strategies directed at young adults in the college setting.
Physically active lifestyles are regularly associated with improved health and quality of life. Differences in lifestyles in society can partly be understood through the differences in the social and physical environment. This study examines the relationships between reported physical activity, and the extent of perceived support for physical activity in the physical and policy environment (e.g. facilities, programmes and other opportunities), and in the social environment. The data for the study come from a cross-cultural health policy study called MAREPS. In total, 3342 adults, 18 years or older, from six countries (Belgium, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland) were interviewed via telephone. Respondents were categorised as active or inactive according to self-reported physical activity. Social environmental factors and physical and policy environmental factors were also assessed. The analysis of the data was informed by social cognitive theory, although the study was not originally designed for this purpose. Sixty-eight percent of females and 70% of males were active. The proportions of active and inactive varied by countries to a great extent. The strongest independent predictor of being physically active was social environment. Those who perceived low social support from their personal environment (i.e. family, friends, school and workplace) were more than twice as likely to be sedentary compared to those who reported high social support from their personal environment. Specific knowledge of the programmes and actions for physical activity and sport was also a strong predictor of being active. A supportive physical and policy environment was not associated with participation in physical activity as strongly as had been anticipated. The variation between countries was stronger predictor of being active than the physical and policy environment variables. This study generates the hypotheses and raises the questions that in a preliminary way, there appears to be some relationships between aspects of physical and social environment and physical activity participation. However, future research is needed to refine and clarify this.
Effective interventions to increase physical activity levels are critical in a nation where inactivity is a national public health problem.
This pilot study examined whether a minimal intervention (daily records of physical activity) increased activity levels in a community sample of working women.
In a longitudinal, pretest-posttest design, 49 working women were randomly assigned at the work site level to the control (n = 25) or intervention group (n = 24). At pretest and posttest, subjects completed self-report questionnaires that measured psychological, social-environmental, physical activity, and demographic variables. Subjects in the intervention group kept daily records of their physical activities during the 12-week study, while those in the control group kept no records. In order to compare activity in the two groups, all subjects wore pedometers daily that recorded number of steps.
There was a significant difference between groups in the pedometer values (mean number of daily steps) at the end of the study period (mean difference +/- SE 2147 +/- 636, p = .022) (2000 steps = approximately 1 mile). Multiple regression analysis showed that only the intervention (p = .003) was a significant predictor of the pedometer values. Hierarchical data analysis was used to account for the intra-class correlation of 0.48 within work site.
Results from this sample of 49 women indicated that mean activity was greater in the intervention group compared to the control group. Recording daily activity is a cost-effective and acceptable intervention that may increase activity levels in women. However, more research is recommended to study the dual role of activity records as a data collection method as well as a potential intervention to increase physical activity.
Contributions of Attachment Theory and Research to Motivation Science
- M Mikulincer
- P Shaver
Validity of Two Electronic Pedometers for Assessment of Number of Steps and Distance. Publications of UKK Institute
- K Ojala