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Physical Activity Motivating Games: Be Active and Get Your Own Reward
Abstract
People’s daily lives have become increasingly sedentary, with extended periods of time being spent in front of a host of electronic screens for learning, work, and entertainment. We present research into the use of an adaptive persuasive technology, which introduces bursts of physical activity into a traditionally sedentary activity: computer game playing. Our game design approach leverages the playfulness and addictive nature of computer games to motivate players to engage in mild physical activity. The design allows players to gain virtual in-game rewards in return for performing real physical activity captured by sensory devices. This article presents a two-stage analysis of the activity-motivating game design approach applied to a prototype game. Initially, we detail the overall acceptance of active games discovered when trialing the technology with 135 young players. Results showed that players performed more activity without negatively affecting their perceived enjoyment of the playing experience. The analysis did discover, however, a lack of balance between the amounts of physical activity carried out by players with various gaming skills, which prompted a subsequent investigation into adaptive techniques for balancing the amount of physical activity performed by players. An evaluation of additional 90 players showed that adaptive techniques successfully overcame the gaming skills dependence and achieved more balanced activity levels. Overall, this work positions activity-motivating games as an approach that can potentially change the way players interact with computer games and lead to healthier lifestyles.
... Reinforcement theory, the most prominent example of radical behaviorism (Moore, 2011), considers the cognitive processes of behavior formation as a "black box" and suggests direct relationships between stimuli and outcomes (Skinner, 1953). It primarily guides the study of whether extrinsic gamification mechanics, such as rewards (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Kordaki & Gousiou, 2017) or climbing the leaderboard , can positively influence learning outcomes. ...
... In addition, both activity theory and social learning theory emphasize the central role of behavioral reinforcements but extend the sole significance of stimuli by a cognitive activity system (Vygotsky, 1978) and observational learning processes (Bandura, 1971). While from a self-determination perspective (Ryan & Deci, 2020), punishments or monetary incentives can be counterproductive as reinforcers, game elements such as badges and trophies (Suh et al., 2018), in-game rewards (Berkovsky et al., 2012), praise messages (Carenys & Moya, 2016;Kordaki & Gousiou, 2017) or status symbols, which are commonly used in gamification systems, serious games and game-based learning (Klock et al., 2020;Rapp, 2017a), are more informational in nature about the performance and relevance of the user's progress and thus can represent effective forms of reinforcements. Moreover, gamified environments can also offer effective incentives in the form of additional game features, including unexpected ones (Rapp, 2017b) or virtual gifts and loot (Xu et al., 2020). ...
... Reinforcement theory leads to examining whether learning can be manipulated by praise mechanisms (Carenys & Moya, 2016), such as rewards (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Kordaki & Gousiou, 2017) TTM aims to describe the phases in which changes in human behavior occur. In the precontemplation stage, the individual is not yet aware of the situation and gets in contact with a behavior change through consciousness raising, dramatic belief and environmental reevaluation. ...
Despite increasing scientific interest in explaining how gamification supports positive affect and motivation, behavior change and learning, there is still a lack of an overview of the current theoretical understanding of the psychological mechanisms of gamification. Previous research has adopted several different angles and remains fragmented. Taking both an observational and explanatory perspective, we examined the theoretical foundations used in research on gamification, serious games and game-based learning through a systematic literature review and then discussed the commonalities of their core assumptions. The overview shows that scientists have used a variety of 118 different theories. Most of them share explicitly formulated or conceptual connections. From their interrelations, we derived basic principles that help explain how gamification works: Gamification can illustrate goals and their relevance, nudge users through guided paths, give users immediate feedback, reinforce good performance and simplify content to manageable tasks. Gamification mechanics can allow users to pursue individual goals and choose between different progress paths, while the system can adapt complexity to the user's abilities. Social gamification elements may enable social comparison and connect users to support each other and work towards a common goal.
... Tables 13A,B and Figure 14B demonstrate the effectiveness of employing PT with regards to the targeted audience's age group. Behavior [42,52,60,61,75,62,73,74,92,132,144,177,178,179,180]; [198] [34,58,35,36,39,70,41,51,43,44,45,46,48,53,55,56,57,59,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,71,77,78,118,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,108,87,88,111,89,90,91,93,94,95,96,151,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,109,110,112,113,195,114,115,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,133,134,130,135,186,136,131,137,138,139,140,141,142,145,147,148,149,150,152,174,153,154,155,156,157,158,146,160,161,162,163,164,165,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,175,176,182,183,184,185,187,189,190,191,192,193,194,196,197,199,202,203] 151 89% ...
... Motivation [36,37,42,44,47,50,52,53,57,60,61,75,65,69,81,95,100,103,110,111,112,113,114,116,119,129,134,136,141,143,145,162,166,171,177,178,179,181,183,185,186,189,191,192,193,194]; [195,197,198,199,200] 51 30% ...
... As shown in Figure 10B, the findings reveal that almost three quarters 125 (74%) of all the reviewed articles did not use or did not state very clearly the behavior theory they used. Considering that most of the analyzed studies either did not Quantitative [37,38,45,47,50,56,57,61,75,62,68,73,79,89,92,93,94,95,109,114,117,118,124,126,128,130,136,131,141,144,147,148,149,151,155,156,158,146,163,166,169,173,176,196,197,203] [ [42,51,52,101,104,112,129,133,134,160,167,178,179,180,182,185,186,190,192,193,195,199,202] [107, 108] 51 30% ...
Persuasive technology (PT) is increasingly being used in the health and wellness domain to motivate and assist users with different lifestyles and behavioral health issues to change their attitudes and/or behaviors. There is growing evidence that PT can be effective at promoting behaviors in many health and wellness domains, including promoting physical activity (PA), healthy eating, and reducing sedentary behavior (SB). SB has been shown to pose a risk to overall health. Thus, reducing SB and increasing PA have been the focus of much PT work. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of PTs for promoting PA and reducing SB. Specifically, we answer some fundamental questions regarding its design and effectiveness based on an empirical review of the literature on PTs for promoting PA and discouraging SB, from 2003 to 2019 (170 papers). There are three main objectives: (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of PT in promoting PA and reducing SB; (2) to summarize and highlight trends in the outcomes such as system design, research methods, persuasive strategies employed and their implementaions, behavioral theories, and employed technological platforms; (3) to reveal the pitfalls and gaps in the present literature that can be leveraged and used to inform future research on designing PT for PA and SB.
... . Explicit alternation between and separation of action-reflection steps (e.g. in Jacobs and Heracleous 2007;Kangas 2010;Lin 2010;Caci, Chiazzese, and D'Amico 2013) . Sub-tasks, each with their own sub-goals, either done as a group or spread among individual learners (e.g. in Terrenghi et al. 2006;Kangas 2010); preferably in line with individual capabilities (Frank 2007;Hong et al. 2009;Berkovski, Freyne, and Coombe 2012) . Simplifying the learning content (e.g. ...
... In addition to the playfulness design elements mentioned in the previous sub-sections, various scholars describe a need for stimulating process guidance in playful learning contexts (e.g. Price et al. 2003;Price and Rogers 2004;Terrenghi et al. 2006;Frank 2007;Kangas 2010;Lin 2010;Cheng and Winston 2011;Berkovski, Freyne, and Coombe 2012;Ching and Ching 2012;Pavlas et al. 2012;Su, Chen, and Fan 2013;Tsoukalas 2010, 2011). Some scholars mention the need for personal attention to each participant by other learners and by the learning process facilitator (e.g. ...
... Some authors mentioned that competitions and challenges activate engagement in playful learning (e.g. Lucero and Arrasvuori 2013;Berkovski, Freyne, and Coombe 2012). However, Pavlas et al. (2012) stress the need to guard a balance between evoking immersion in the playful task and explicitness about the meta-task, namely the learning that is meant to happen. ...
Playfulness supports people in learning. This study synthesizes a framework for playfulness for one particular type of learning: responsible research and innovation (RRI) reflection processes. Playfulness design elements were extracted from literature about playfulness in various learning and reflection contexts, by inductive coding of playfulness conceptualizations, playful tool(s) descriptions and their effects. We extracted four activity principles – narration, imagination, action-reflection and co-creation – and three playfulness process requirements – experimentation space, focus and stimulating guidance. Due to the utilized database search queries, important articles about RRI reflection processes are possibly overlooked. Also, overlaps between the design elements and gamification may exist. Last, their suitability for adults, offline and hybrid reflection processes require further investigation. We translate each playfulness design element into the context of RRI reflection processes and advise on how to use them in designing playful reflection processes, which can prove their anticipated fruitfulness. Nevertheless, due to the utilized database search queries, important articles about RRI reflection processes are possibly overlooked. Also, overlaps between the design elements and gamification may exist. Therefore, their suitability for adults, offline and hybrid reflection processes require further investigation.
... Examining behavior change theories employed reveals that more than half of all the studies reviewed (55%) are not informed by any theory or did not specify the theories that inform their PT [38], [46]- [50], [55], [56], [58], [60], [62], [67], [70], [89] [10], [73], [75], [79] [15], [85], [86] 34 ...
... Tailoring, Personalization and customization [12], [17], [38], [40], [68], [ intervention design, see Table 4. Even among the studies that specified the theories that informed their design, most of them only mentioned the theories without actually specifying how the theories informed the actual PT intervention design components and/or evaluation. ...
... Therefore, it is difficult to establish long-term effects of PT for health and wellness from existing studies. [35], [38], [41], [46], [48], [56], [58], [60], [62], [63], [65]- [67], [70]- [76], [79], [81], [83], [86], [88] 44% Attitude [5], [9], [10], [13], [59], [65], [68], [76], [78], [84] 17% Motivation [6], [31], [37]- [40], [54], [57], [61], [64], [78] 17% Awareness [16], [43], [47], [50]- [52], [77], [84] 15% Self-efficacy [13], Study participants and sample size. Similar to the study duration, the sample size (number of participants in the evaluation of the PT) also varies greatly. ...
The evolving field of persuasive and behavior change technology is increasingly targeted at influencing behavior in the area of health and wellness. This paper provides an empirical review of 16 years (85 papers) of literature on persuasive technology for health and wellness to: (1.) answer important questions regarding the effectiveness of persuasive technology for health and wellness, (2.) summarize and highlight trends in the technology design, research methods, motivational strategies, theories, and health behaviors targeted by research to date, (3.) uncover pitfalls of existing persuasive technological interventions for health and wellness, and (4.) suggest directions for future research.
... Looking at current HCI work on exertion gaming, much of it focuses on in some way on energy expenditure. How much energy expenditure exertion games promote in their players has been studied in many ways, such as by augmenting existing game mechanics with exertion based bonuses or penalties (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Chatta et al., 2015;Hassan et al., 2012), creating games for school physical education classes (Keskinen et al., 2014;Macvean and Robertson, 2013), replacing conventional input devices with exertion based gestural control (Guo and Quarles, 2012), studying how much energy existing exertion games require to play (Chen et al., 2014;O'Donovan et al., 2012;Whitehead et al., 2010), and how one might motivate people to play exertion games more often (Macvean and Robertson, 2013;Nunes et al., 2014;Yim and Graham, 2007). ...
... Several authors (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Chatta et al., 2015;Hassan et al., 2012;Jung et al., 2010;Wylie and Coulton, 2008) have described the design of exertion games as a process of taking an existing digital game and replacing or augmenting the typically mouse, keyboard or gamepad input with an exertion input mechanism. For example Berkovsky et al. (2012) add a new sensor that is triggered by jumping on the spot a certain number of times which gives bonus time in an existing mouse-and keyboardcontrolled maze game. ...
... Several authors (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Chatta et al., 2015;Hassan et al., 2012;Jung et al., 2010;Wylie and Coulton, 2008) have described the design of exertion games as a process of taking an existing digital game and replacing or augmenting the typically mouse, keyboard or gamepad input with an exertion input mechanism. For example Berkovsky et al. (2012) add a new sensor that is triggered by jumping on the spot a certain number of times which gives bonus time in an existing mouse-and keyboardcontrolled maze game. Guo and Quarles (2012) similarly describe taking an existing game and using arbitrary exercises as gestural controls to encourage people to do exercise. ...
While exertion games-digital games where the outcome is determined by physical exertion-are of growing interest in HCI, we believe the current health and fitness focus in the research of exertion games limits the opportunities this field has to offer. In order to broaden the agenda on exertion games, we link the existing fields of sports and interactive entertainment (arguing these fields have much to offer) by presenting four of our own designs as case studies. Using our experiences with these designs we highlight three key strategies to guide designers in the creation of richer exertion game experiences: designing a temporal trajectory through games with reference to the way exertion changes over time, designing for the inevitable and not necessarily negative effects of pain in exertion games, and designing for the highly socially situated nature of exertion gaming.
... These prototypes can be fully exploratory and open-ended, constrained and oriented toward a tangible outcome, or in between (e.g., [5,8,31,55,61,62,65]). ...
... 885) [31]. Other systems are designed with particular outcomes in mind, such as those promoting healthy behavior change through increased exercise (e.g., [8,65]) or changes to diet (e.g., [55,62]). Systems may blend outcome-oriented and exploratory reflection, such as those with purposes the user can adapt. ...
People with multiple chronic conditions (MCC) need support to understand and articulate how their personal values relate to their health and health care. We developed three prototypes for supporting reflection on values and health and tested them in a qualitative study involving 12 people with MCC. We identified benefits and limitations to building on how patients prepare for visits with clinicians; revealed varying levels of comfort with deep, exploratory reflection involving a facilitator; and found that reflection oriented toward the future could elicit hopeful attitudes and plans for change, while reflection on the past elicited strong resistance. We translated these findings into design guidelines for supporting collaborative reflection on values and health. We also discussed these findings in relation to previous literature on designing for reflection in three areas: shifting between self-guided and facilitator-guided reflection, balancing between outcome-oriented and exploratory reflection, and exploring temporality in reflection.
... With the pervasive purpose of providing low-effort suggestions that should enable actual adoption by a large number of users, Berkovsky et al. explored adaptive persuasive technologies in the form of activity-motivating computer games to engage players in physical activity (Berkovsky et al. 2012). The authors propose to associate the rewards and incentives that inspire intrinsic motivation in the player, with physical activity to be performed in the game. ...
... Table 1 summarizes the reviewed approaches. They faced with the task of engaging users in more physical activities, (Berkovsky et al. 2012;Reimer and Maier 2016), healthier lifestyles (Rabbi et al. 2015), or improving physical performances (Smyth and Cunningham 2018). However, none of them explicitly consider the weight dimension during the recommendation process. ...
Wearable devices make self-monitoring easier by the users, who usually tend to increase physical activity and weight loss maintenance over time. But in terms of behavior adaptation to these goals, these devices do not provide specific features beyond monitoring the achievement of daily goals, such as a number of steps or miles walked and caloric outtake. The purpose of this study is twofold. By analyzing a large dataset of signals collected by these devices, we identify significant clusters of similar behavior patterns related to user physical activities. We then examine specific patterns of step count in the context of recommendation of habits that more likely give rise to weight loss effects. The evaluation of the effectiveness of these personalized recommendations, based on a comparative study, proves how a recommender system based on the reinforcement learning paradigm is able to guarantee better performance for this task by balancing the trade-off between long-term and short-term rewards.
... For example, in the Fish'n'Steps system [51], an individual's step count is mapped to an animated fish, which becomes happy or sad based on the number of steps taken by the user. Systems like Health Mashup [8] and Habito [32] provide textual feedback on self-monitored data, whereas prior works have also explored gamification techniques [9,90] to make physical activity playful. For example, Heart Burn [91] is a digital car racing game where the real-time heart rate data influence the car's speed in the game, while Walsh and Golback [87] have converted user's steps to a currency that can be spent within an online explorer game. ...
... We started by exploring the literature [18,20,30,52,63,90] and took into account findings from earlier studies [8,9,32,45,46,48,73] to identify possible representations for activity treats. The technical capabilities of current food printers [16] also influenced the selection. ...
Self-monitoring offers benefits in facilitating awareness about physical exercise, but such data-centric activity may not always lead to an enjoyable experience. We introduce EdiPulse a novel system that creates activity treats to offer playful reflections on everyday physical activity through the appealing medium of chocolate. EdiPulse translates self-monitored data from physical activity into small 3D printed chocolate treats. These treats (
... One key reason for childhood obesity is lack of physical activity [10]. Various mobile apps have consequently sought to motivate children for outdoor activity [2,4,5]. To extend prior works that also addressed this problem in a playful way, this work contributes the description of a novel, mobile, location-based, smartphone game called Woody. ...
... Prior work has introduced complementary physical activity to the normally sedentary activity of gaming [2]. This includes a growing number of mobile games that transferred virtual gaming experiences into the real world [3,5]. ...
This work describes the design of a smartphone-based game that aims to increase children's outdoor activity through location-based interactions. In the game, players have to physically go outside, find real trees, and interact with them using their smartphones in order to keep the game's character (a timber worm) alive. First evaluation results show that children enjoyed playing and increased their outdoor activity.
... Concerning specific user groups, HCI research has previously engaged in the development of systems for distinct audiences. For example, a large body of work has explored technology to motivate physical activity among older adults [33], and game-based systems in particular have been examined as an opportunity to engage children in physical activity [11,125]. Research outcomes suggest that certain user groups benefit from adaptations, but that individual backgrounds need to be taken into account (e.g., in the case of older adults and their perspectives on technology to motivate activity [150]), an aspect that is also relevant in the context of disability. ...
Equitable access to sport for disabled people remains challenging, and technology is often viewed as a way of addressing barriers. However, little is known about how disability is approached in such research and the purpose of sport that is afforded to disabled people. We address this issue in a review of 60 publications in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. We leverage Template Analysis in combination with Mueller and Young’s lenses on virtues of sport to also explore the experiential side of sports technology for disabled people. Our results are threefold: (1) We show that disability shifts the intended purpose of sports technology away from leisure to health, and that technologies such as exergames are viewed as an opportunity to replace real-world sport to address barriers and increase motivation. (2) We highlight that in(ter)dependence plays a strong role in technology development, but that disabled people are not extensively involved in research. (3) We show that virtues beyond health as per Mueller and Young do apply to existing work, but that value frameworks need to be re-worked in the context of disability, placing a stronger emphasis on sport as leisure, and the enriching role that technology can play.
... Many studies have focused on motivating physical activity through gamification by developing software or using hardware [34][35][36][37][38][39]. Exertion games have demonstrated not only their effectiveness in promoting physical activity but also their ability to enhance social interaction among users [40,41]. ...
Online meetings have become an integral part of daily life, but prolonged screen time poses significant health risks. While various interventions address sedentary lifestyles, few focus on mitigating sedentary behavior during online meetings. Design opportunities in this context remain underexplored. This study investigates the design of gamified bodily interactions as anti-sedentary measures during online meetings using a research through design approach. In collaboration with 11 users, we co-designed and iterated three prototypes, resulting in the BIG-AOME (Bodily Interaction Gamification towards Anti-sedentary Online Meeting Environments) framework. User studies with 15 participants across three groups evaluated these prototypes through semi-structured interviews analyzed using Hsieh's qualitative content analysis. Findings show that gamified bodily interactions encourage physical movement while reducing awkwardness during online meetings. Participants valued the social engagement fostered by cooperative and competitive elements in these games, enhancing social dynamics while encouraging physical movement. Such games can also serve as online icebreakers or playful decision-making tools. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of design dimensions within the BIG-AOME framework, including body engagement, attention, bodily interplay, timeliness, and virtual/physical environments, highlighting the potential of anti-sedentary bodily interactions to mitigate sedentary behavior and enhance social connections in online meetings.
... Many studies have focused on motivating physical activity through gamification by developing software or using hardware [34][35][36][37][38][39]. Exertion games have demonstrated not only their effectiveness in promoting physical activity but also their ability to enhance social interaction among users [40,41]. ...
Background
Online meetings have become an integral part of daily life for many people. However, prolonged periods of sitting still in front of screens can lead to significant, long-term health risks. While previous studies have explored various interventions to address sedentary lifestyles, few have specifically focused on mitigating sedentary behavior during online meetings. Furthermore, design opportunities to address this issue in the context of online meetings remain underexplored.
Objective
This study aims to investigate the design of effective antisedentary interactions for online meeting scenarios and understand user experiences with gamified bodily interactions as an antisedentary measure during online meetings.
Methods
This study adopts a “research through design” approach to develop and explore user experiences of gamified bodily interactions as interventions to mitigate sedentary behavior during online meetings. In collaboration with 11 users, we co-designed and iterated 3 prototypes, which led to the development of the Bodily Interaction Gamification towards Anti-sedentary Online Meeting Environments (BIG-AOME) framework. Using these prototypes, we conducted user studies with 3 groups totaling 15 participants. During co-design and evaluation, all group semistructured interviews were transcribed into written format and analyzed using a conventional qualitative content analysis method.
Results
The findings demonstrate that gamified bodily interactions encourage users to engage in physical movement while reducing the awkwardness of doing so during online meetings. Seamless integration with meeting software and the inclusion of long-term reward mechanisms can further contribute to sustained use. In addition, such games can serve as online icebreakers or playful tools for decision-making. Drawing from 3 design prototypes, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of each design dimension within the BIG-AOME framework: bodily engagement, attention, bodily interplay, timeliness, and virtual and physical environments.
Conclusions
Our research findings indicate that antisedentary bodily interactions designed for online meetings have the potential to mitigate sedentary behaviors while enhancing social connections. Furthermore, the BIG-AOME framework that we propose explores the design space for antisedentary physical interactions in the context of online meetings, detailing pertinent design choices and considerations.
... For this theory to be effective, there must be a balance between difficulty and challenge. The Reinforcement Theory has also been employed, which explains that extrinsic gamification mechanics such as rewards or rankings positively influence learning outcomes (Berkovsky, Freyne and Coombe, 2012). ...
The adolescence period is characterized by significant changes in individuals' lives, which can lead to various emotional and behavioural problems. Therefore, it is important for young adults to have tools for self-regulation, understanding, and controlling their physiological symptoms. Integrating these tools as gamified elements into new technologies is a way to engage a younger audience. In recent years, the effectiveness of immersive Virtual Reality has been repeatedly demonstrated in fields such as Psychology and Education. The combination of this technology with biosensors enables individuals to be aware of their real-time physiological states. This physiological monitoring can lead to adaptations in applications based on the individual's emotional state, for example. This work describes the design and development of an immersive Virtual Reality game whose main interaction is through biofeedback. The game is called "Alice, Beyond Reality", and its objective is to help young adults learn to self-regulate their physiological responses. The game draws inspiration from the well-known story of "Alice in Wonderland". In this story, the Queen of Hearts has transformed all the characters into cards, and the players must help them escape before it's too late. To achieve this, the players are guided by the White Rabbit through different levels where interaction through physiology is key. For instance, the players must learn to increase and decrease their heart rate to solve puzzles that allow them to progress to the next level. Throughout the game, gamification elements such as points, progressive difficulty, and various challenges are included to motivate the players to continue advancing in the game. Through the biofeedback system, the players become aware of their physiological changes to control them voluntarily. In the final screen, the players are shown their progression throughout the game so they can recognize their evolution. In the near future, an initial validation with users will be conducted to assess the usability and functionality of the game.
... Exergames have shown to be capable of addressing a variety of health-related issues such as enhancing older adults' motor performance and mental wellbeing (Gonçalves et al., 2021), improving mood by helping children cope with various stressors (Ho et al., 2017), and helping office workers to take a break, relax, and gain motivation to continue their work (Berglund et al., 2023;Yoo et al., 2020). Many researchers have explored the potential of exergames for motivating physical activity (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Sun, 2013;Tabak et al., 2020), and have identified guidelines for designing successful exergames (Mueller & Isbister, 2014;Sinclair et al., 2007;Yim & Graham, 2007). For example, one design guideline that can make exergames successful is to support the formation of groups and match people to other interested peers (Yim & Graham, 2007). ...
Exergames are becoming increasingly popular and have shown potential for motivating physical activity. Past research suggests that social (multiplayer) exergames offer players an engaging experience and good aerobic exercises. Our systematic review summarizes existing work and identifies gaps, trends, and patterns on social exergame research in the domain of health and wellness. A search was conducted in the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed. After screening 2272 records, we identified 73 studies from 2013 to 2023 that meet the inclusion criteria. Our results reveal that step tracking is the most commonly implemented measure of physical activity in social exergames, and that competition, rewards, and cooperation are the most common features used for designing the games. Our results also show that the effectiveness of social exer-games is intricately linked to a combination of factors, including group size, player matching, and game features. The main contribution of this paper is (1) an analysis of features and group dynamics employed for designing social exergames, and (2) how game features affect the games' outcome (both positive and negative) uncovering challenges and opportunities to advance future research in this area. Our findings in the current review provides insights for the design and implementation of social exergaming helping users to experience more socially satisfying game experiences thereby increasing the motivation for exercise, as well as gaining social benefits.
... Exergaming can be described as any kind of video game or multimedia application that requires physical movement for the purpose of controlling the game [20]. It combines smart technologies, exercise, and cognitive stimulation [21,22]. It can be used on numerous platforms such as applications on smart phones [23], virtual reality systems [24], and consoles [25,26]. ...
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased sedentary behaviour and poorer health among office workers. Exergaming is a technology-driven mode of exercise that can improve health while physically distancing.
Objective:
The purpose of this commentary was to explain the benefits of exergaming on physical function, psychological health, and cognition among office workers.
Results:
Exergaming improves these health outcomes, reduces pain, and decreases the risk for chronic disease. It is easily accessible on smart devices and can be performed both indoors and outdoors.
Conclusions:
Twenty-one minutes of exergaming per day can improve health outcomes and reduce the risk of pain and disease. Employers and policy-makers should consider promoting exergaming among office workers.
... Moreover, the points can be used to exchange hints for a puzzle game. PLAY, MATE! converts a computer game called Neverball into a physical game and leverages its playfulness to stimulate regular physical activity (Berkovsky, Freyne, & Coombe, 2012). During the game, the technology maps different levels of jumping to different virtual rewards. ...
The rapid penetration of labor-saving devices and task-oriented workplace norms have substantially reduced physical exercises while increasing sedentary behaviors in many office-based jobs. The prevalence of physical inactivity at work increases the risks of developing metabolic disorders, mental illnesses, and musculoskeletal injuries, threatening office workers’ physical and psychological well-being. To tackle such issue, many strategies have been proposed to facilitate workplace fitness initiatives, such as public policies, organizational wellness programs, promotional materials, and socioenvironmental changes, etc. However, it is challenging to reach the goals of these top-down strategies, once their applications fail to blend physical activity into everyday work and persuade individuals to keep up fitness levels in office settings. The emerging fitness-promoting technologies may be leveraged to support active lifestyles in the workday context. Through integrating ubiquitous sensing and human-computer interaction (HCI), interactive technologies can sense physical states of office workers and use that information to engage them in office exercises in the short-term as well as encourage their systemic behavior change in the long-term. This doctoral dissertation therefore explores this new perspective of office vitality: How to design interactive technology to facilitate workplace fitness promotion?
... In e-and m-health interventions, this is called "gamification" (Gollwitzer, 1999) and can be introduced by using video gaming elements such as collecting virtual rewards (e.g., points or badges) in a non-gaming context. There is evidence that gamification has potential for increasing PA levels and for improving user experience and engagement (Berkovsky & Coombe, 2012;DeSmet et al, 2014;Zuckerman & Gal-Oz, 2014). So in a future intervention among adolescents, gamification could potentially be used through ...
Feasible and effective interventions to promote physical activity among vocational school‐aged adolescents are strongly needed. Text messaging and Facebook are feasible and acceptable delivery modes for PA interventions among youth. However, little is known about the opinion of vocational school‐aged adolescents regarding behavioural change techniques that can be applied through Facebook or text messaging. Therefore, our aim was to gain insight into the opinions of vocational school‐aged adolescents towards the use of different behaviour change techniques and towards Facebook/text messaging as a delivery mode for PA interventions. Six focus groups were conducted with 41 adolescents from the first grade (12–14 years) of secondary vocational schools in Flanders (Belgium). In total 41 adolescents participated and completed a questionnaire about their text messaging and Facebook use prior to group discussions. Focus group discussions were audio‐recorded and analysed using a thematic analysis method in Nvivo. Participants thought that different behaviour change techniques (e.g., providing feedback, goal setting, self‐monitoring, social comparison) could be integrated in a PA intervention using text messaging and Facebook and were enthusiastic about participating in such an intervention. They indicated that text messages are an easy way to receive information about PA, and that a group page on Facebook is ideal to share information with others. Participants deemed it very important that the group page on Facebook would only include peers with whom they also share an offline connection. Furthermore, adolescents stressed the importance of having autonomy (e.g., to determine their personal activity goals, to self‐monitor their behaviour) and of being active together with friends. This qualitative study revealed that the use of Facebook and text messaging is promising as a delivery method for PA interventions among vocational school‐aged adolescents. The adolescents were keen to participate in an intervention that integrates behaviour change techniques using text messaging or Facebook.
... The results of our study are summarized in Fig. 9, which shows that drug-addiction-related experience has great effects on users' interaction with the DADG. This may be because drugs cause the DAL to have impaired executive functions, regardless of cocaine, stimulants, marijuana, solvents, heroin, or other drug use [6,20]. Thus, the drugaddiction-related experience is a human factor that should be considered when we develop game-based anti-drug material. ...
Drug abuse causes serious problems around the world. Thus, anti-drug material has been increasingly developed and used. However, conventional anti-drug material has until today shown insufficient effects on preventing drug abuse, especially for drug-addicted users. To this end, this study proposes a game-based anti-drug material and examines how drug-addicted people and non-drug-addicted people interact with the game-based anti-drug material. A lag sequential analysis approach was applied to analyze their different behavior patterns. The results revealed that the experience of drug addiction influenced the way individuals access drug information, complete tasks and reach goals during their gaming process. Based on the findings, some suggestions are proposed for the development of adaptive game-based anti-drug material that can accommodate the needs of drug-addicted and non-drug-addicted people to achieve the goal of universal access.
... To address this gap in research, human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work researchers have begun to conduct socio-technical research on community-based health technologies. Much of this work has focused on schools (Berkovsky et al., 2012;Lee et al., 2015;Macvean and Robertson, 2013), including evaluations of wearable and social computing tools that help students track progress toward health goals and engage with one another through social support, observational learning, and friendly competition (Miller and Mynatt, 2014;Poole et al., 2011). Outside of the school context, Maitland et al. (2009), explored design directions for nutrition promotion in public housing complexes. ...
Health promotion increasingly occurs outside of the boundaries of traditional care settings such as hospitals and clinics. Interventions that are anchored within community-based organizations, seeking to meet the nuanced needs of local residents, are a vital component of the wellness promotion ecosystem. These programs are particularly critical when addressing health in low socioeconomic communities, as the services may be more accessible, affordable, and relevant to the needs of populations facing significant barriers to wellness.In this chapter, we examine how technology can become embedded within the context of community-based health interventions. We present a case study from our research, in which we employed a user-centered design process to create and evaluate a novel family exergame within a community-based organization. We use this case study to discuss the criticality, challenge, and benefits of integrating wellness technologies within a broader community health promotion infrastructure.
... To address this gap in research, human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work researchers have begun to conduct socio-technical research on community-based health technologies. Much of this work has focused on schools ( Berkovsky et al., 2012;Lee et al., 2015;Macvean and Robertson, 2013), including evaluations of wearable and social computing tools that help students track progress toward health goals and engage with one another through social support, observational learning, and friendly competition ( Miller and Mynatt, 2014;Poole et al., 2011). Outside of the school context, Maitland et al. (2009), explored design directions for nutrition promotion in public housing complexes. ...
... To address this gap in research, human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work researchers have begun to conduct socio-technical research on community-based health technologies. Much of this work has focused on schools ( Berkovsky et al., 2012;Lee et al., 2015;Macvean and Robertson, 2013), including evaluations of wearable and social comput- ing tools that help students track progress toward health goals and engage with one another through social support, observational learning, and friendly competition (Miller and Mynatt, 2014;Poole et al., 2011). Outside of the school context, Maitland et al. (2009), explored design directions for nutrition promotion in public housing complexes. ...
The socio-technical perspective on health care investigates the analysis, design, implementation, and adaptation of systems that incorporate both the technical and the social. The sociotechnical perspective necessarily includes both technical functionality and social interactions
between people in their various roles and activities.
The chapters of this book reflect established practices and emergent issues in socio-technical design for health care management and engineering. The aim of this volume is to
guide a more deliberate design of socio-technical health care systems.
This conclusion is based not only on the book’s chapters but also draws from a workshop
in August 2016 with the authors and editors.
... To address this gap in research, human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work researchers have begun to conduct socio-technical research on community-based health technologies. Much of this work has focused on schools ( Berkovsky et al., 2012;Lee et al., 2015;Macvean and Robertson, 2013), including evaluations of wearable and social comput- ing tools that help students track progress toward health goals and engage with one another through social support, observational learning, and friendly competition (Miller and Mynatt, 2014;Poole et al., 2011). Outside of the school context, Maitland et al. (2009), explored design directions for nutrition promotion in public housing complexes. ...
Designing Healthcare That Works: A Sociotechnical Approach takes up the pragmatic, messy problems of designing and implementing sociotechnical solutions which integrate organizational and technical systems for the benefit of human health. The book helps practitioners apply principles of sociotechnical design in healthcare and consider the adoption of new theories of change. As practitioners need new processes and tools to create a more systematic alignment between technical mechanisms and social structures in healthcare, the book helps readers recognize the requirements of this alignment. The systematic understanding developed within the book's case studies includes new ways of designing and adopting sociotechnical systems in healthcare. For example, helping practitioners examine the role of exogenous factors, like CMS Systems in the U.S. Or, more globally, helping practitioners consider systems external to the boundaries drawn around a particular healthcare IT system is one key to understand the design challenge. Written by scholars in the realm of sociotechnical systems research, the book is a valuable source for medical informatics professionals, software designers and any healthcare providers who are interested in making changes in the design of the systems. Encompasses case studies focusing on specific projects and covering an entire lifecycle of sociotechnical design in healthcare Provides an in-depth view from established scholars in the realm of sociotechnical systems research and related domains Brings a systematic understanding that includes ways of designing and adopting sociotechnical systems in healthcare.
... approaches using collaborative filtering, or matrix factorization for purposes such as retrieval of ranked lists of items for consumption, or for the rating prediction task (which was made very popular through the Netflix Prize Bennett et al (2007)). Today, the use of recommender systems has spread to a very wide area of topics, including personalized healthcare (Elsweiler et al, 2015;Luo et al, 2016), online news portals (Said et al, 2014a), food (Elahi et al, 2015(Elahi et al, , 2014, social networks (Guy, 2015), exercise (Berkovsky et al, 2012), jobs (Abel, 2015), investment (Zhao et al, 2015), transportation (Bistaffa et al, 2015), shopping (Jannach et al, 2015), etc. The list can be made even longer. ...
... Accordingly, one line of discourse in recent human computer interaction (HCI) research has focused on support for motivational and acceptance factors. Within this discourse, the need for games which foster mental and physical stimulation for older adults has been recognized (Berkovsky et al., 2010(Berkovsky et al., , 2012Campbell et al., 2008;Carmichael et al., 2010a;Consolvo et al., 2006;Gerling et al., 2015;Mueller et al., 2011), and considered to be "a valuable means of re-introducing challenge in late life" (Gerling et al., 2015). Tobiasson et al. (Tobiasson et al., 2012) describe a turn in HCI research, from a view that technology at its best is "effortless to use", and which "blend [s] in with the rest of the world", towards a discourse on how a "more physical demanding interaction" can be established (Tobiasson et al., 2012, p.608). ...
Falls are a serious problem in aging societies. A sedentary life style and low levels of physical activity are major factors aggravating older adults’ fall risk. Information and communication technology (ICT)-based fall prevention interventions are a promising approach to counteract the fall risk of this target group. For some time now, fall prevention interventions have put emphasize to video game based solutions, as video games have become more popular and accepted among older adults. Studies show that such ICT-based fall prevention interventions significantly reduce fall risk in older adults. Nevertheless, the population of older adults is fairly heterogeneous, and factors like gender, age, fitness, sociability, and so on may influence the use of such systems. Therefore, the analysis of subgroups is a common procedure to investigate the affects of various factors on the effectiveness of ICT-based systems. Many of these studies analyze the effectiveness of the system with quantitative measures only. However, the effectiveness of ICT-based fall prevention systems always depends on the sustainable system use by the target group. Qualitative analyses is generally the prime selection to identify determining usage indicators for system usage. Therefore, it seems likely that combined quantitative and qualitative investigations will generate detailed information about system effectiveness and relevant usage indicators for respective target groups. Here, we analyze the ICT-based fall prevention system, iStoppFalls, incorporating exergames and a mobility monitor as well, targeting three aims, (1) is the system effective for different subgroups of older adults, (2) what are the factors influencing fall risk reduction in older adults using the system and are there combined effects of exergaming and activity monitoring on fall risk reduction, and (3) which usage indicators explain the usage of such a system by older adults. This paper will provide a better understanding of the effectiveness of ICT-based fall prevention for different subgroups and the indicators that determine the use of such technologies by older adults.
... For example, as we describe above, effective strategies to prevent or combat obesity will necessarily prioritize dietary interventions above exercise based interventions. Exertion gaming research however assumes a simplistic model of "energy balance", summarized by one exertion gaming author as "One of the key reasons for the increasing obesity epidemic is positive energy balance, that is, the condition where one's energy intake exceeds one's energy expenditure" [6]. This model suggests that people can lose weight via exercise alone, or that obesity can be blamed on lack of activity alone (e.g. ...
HCI often requires scholars to build upon research from fields outside their expertise, creating the risk that foundational work is misunderstood and misrepresented. The prevailing goal of “exergames” research towards ameliorating obesity appears to be built on just such a misunderstanding of health research. In this paper, we analyse all citations to a single influential study, which has been extensively cited to justify research on exergames. We categorise the 375 citations based on whether they represent the findings of that study accurately or inaccurately. Our findings suggest that 69% of exergames papers citing this study misrepresent the findings, demonstrating a systematic failure of scholarship in exergames research. We argue that exergaming research should cease focusing on games as treatment for obesity, and that HCI publications should demand more critical and scholarly engagement with research from outside HCI.
... Specifically, weight loss technology is often seen as a way to help people combat obesity and obesity-related health conditions. Thus, the focus is on designing apps to motivate users to eat less or healthier, exercise more, and use the app long-term [4,6,9,10,20,22,27,35,40,46,47,49] and how this technology contributes to users' ability or their perception of their ability to achieve health goals, such as weight loss and exercising [8,28]. ...
Technology is often viewed as either positive or negative. On one hand, in HCI, weight loss apps are usually seen as a positive influence on users. From the sociocultural perspective, on the other hand, media and technology negatively impact body satisfaction and contribute to eating disorders; however, these studies fail to include weight loss apps. While these apps can be beneficial to users, they can also have negative effects on users with eating disorder behaviors. Yet few research studies have looked at weight loss apps in relation to eating disorders. In order to fill this gap, we conducted interviews with 16 women with a history of eating disorders who use(d) weight loss apps. While our findings suggest these apps can contribute to and exacerbate eating disorder behaviors, they also reveal a more complex picture of app usage. Women’s use and perceptions of weight loss apps shift as they experience life and move to and from stages of change. This research troubles the binary view of technology and emphasizes the importance of looking at technology use as a dynamic process. Our study contributes to our understanding of weight loss app design. (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3025591)
... While many researchers in affective or persuasive computing already address a linkage between mind and body [Damasio 1994] or motivation and physical abilities [Fogg 2002], Berkovsky et al. [2012] created a game which "leverages the playfulness and addictive nature of computer games to motivate players to engage in mild physical activities". This game evaluation was conducted with 135 young players. ...
Falls and their consequences are arguably most important events for transition from independent living to institutional care for older adults. Information and communication technology (ICT)-based support of fall prevention and fall risk assessment under the control of the user has a tremendous potential to, over time, prevent falls and reduce associated harm and costs. Our research uses participative design and a persuasive health approach to allow for seamless integration of an ICT-based fall prevention system into older adults’ everyday life. Based on a 6-month field study with 12 participants, we present qualitative results regarding the system use and provide insights into attitudes and practices of older adults concerning fall prevention and ICT-supported self-management of health. Our study demonstrates how it can lead to positive aspects of embodiment and health literacy through continuous monitoring of personal results, improved technical confidence, and quality of life. Implications are provided for designing similar systems.
... Some mHealth interventions pair game features with desired behaviors [46], such as encouraging physical activity by growing a digital garden as fitness goals are attained [47] or scoring points on familiar games (eg, hangman, Sudoku) for accurately estimating nutritional value of foods [48]. Gamification is well suited for motivational aspects of behavior change [49][50][51]. As a smoking cessation aid, game mechanics (eg, points, badges, leaderboards) have been used to encourage the use of educational "quit guides" [38]. ...
Background
Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. Therefore, researchers are constantly exploring new ways to promote smoking cessation. Mobile health (mHealth) technologies could be effective cessation tools. Despite the availability of commercial quit-smoking apps, little research to date has examined smokers’ preferred treatment intervention components (ie, design features). Honoring these preferences is important for designing programs that are appealing to smokers and may be more likely to be adopted and used.
Objective
The aim of this study was to understand smokers’ preferred design features of mHealth quit-smoking tools.
Methods
We used a mixed-methods approach consisting of focus groups and written surveys to understand the design preferences of adult smokers who were interested in quitting smoking (N=40). Focus groups were stratified by age to allow differing perspectives to emerge between older (>40 years) and younger (
... As noted above, the developers of Ingress are eager to promote the health and exploratory benefits of the game (i.e. by encouraging outdoors interactions and player roaming) (Berkovsky et al. 2012). Yet in practical terms, the natural world serves as little more than the background panorama upon which artificial and technological features of the game are imprinted. ...
For effective and sustained ecological restoration, community support is essential. Yet, in modern society, artificial constructs and electronic technology now dominate most peoples' interests (technophilia). This has led to a perceived growing disconnection between humans and nature. We ask how such technology might be harnessed as an agent of connection to the environment, rather than being seen as a driver of detachment. We use the example of a hugely popular mobile augmented reality smartphone game "Ingress" to show how gaming technology can excite people about nature, unlock their inherent biophilia, and highlight the value of ecological restoration in their everyday lives.
... Specifically, weight loss technology is often seen as a way to help people combat obesity and obesity-related health conditions. Thus, the focus is on designing apps to motivate users to eat less or healthier, exercise more, and use the app long-term [4,6,9,10,20,22,27,35,40,46,47,49] and how this technology contributes to users' ability or their perception of their ability to achieve health goals, such as weight loss and exercising [8,28]. These apps can be useful weight loss tools [19,38], but they may also trigger unhealthy eating and exercise behaviors by creating a dependence on logging food, exercise, and weight. ...
... Of all the included articles, four studied combining video games and physical exercising together. One of the articles, by Berkovsky et al. [1], discussed adding exercise properties to already existing games with PLAY, MATE! design. This included in-game tracking of users activity and adding awards for them. ...
This study presents a concept for linking individual physical activities and video games together to build an ecosystem to motivate players to exercise. We used a systematic mapping study to establish current state of art and a user questionnaire to understand how players feel about digital rewards from physical exercises. In addition we implemented a prototype to demonstrate the applicability. The results suggest that combining games and physical activity trackers together is technologically feasible, and there is an audience who would be willing to exercise in order to receive rewards in games.
Designing games accessible and inclusive to a broader audience requires considering social, technical, and cultural aspects that recognize the diversity of the target audience. One strategy to foster inclusion is through adaptability, allowing games to be adapted based on the needs of their users. In this context, a Systematic Mapping Study was conducted to identify and document existing studies focusing on the adaptation of digital games. Aiming at creating a structured and wide panorama of the scientific literature, this paper draws on the 5W2H Framework to answer the following research questions: (1) What game characteristics are being adapted? (2) Why is it being adapted? (3) For whom is it being adapted? (4) When does the adaptation occur? (5) Who is carrying out the adaptation? (6) What technologies are present? (7) Where are the technologies used? (8) How were the technologies evaluated? (9) What was evaluated? (10) Who evaluated? and (11) What theories and methodologies support the study? Beyond presenting the current state-of-the-art in digital game adaptation, the mapping study highlights a prevailing trend in research on adaptive systems. Notably, Patients and Health Professionals emerge as the primary target audience, although many studies did not specify their target audience. The results also indicate that the evaluation of technologies commonly employs Proof of Concept, Experiment, and Case Studies, with Patients and Students frequently considered as the target audience, albeit as secondary participants in the adaptation and evaluation processes. Finally, the findings reveal that most papers lack explicit grounding in a theoretical or methodological foundation, suggesting the need for further investigation.
Designing accessible digital games requires considering social, technical, and cultural aspects according to the diversity of the target audience. One way to address this diversity of audiences to promote accessibility is through adaptability, allowing a game to be customized according to the needs of its users. A Systematic Mapping Study was conducted to identify and document studies dealing with the adaptation of digital games according to the needs of their users. This paper focuses on the Mapping research questions on the following adaptation dimensions: (1) What game aspects are being adapted? (2) Why is it being adapted? (3) For whom is it being adapted? (4) When does the adaptation occur? and (5) Who is carrying out the adaptation? The main results of this study are: (i) the identification of a trend in research on adaptive systems; (ii) the use of Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment and Procedural Content Generation techniques to implement adaptive behaviour in games; (iii) the patients, non-specified users, and health professionals categories as the main results in the studies’ target audience.
The impact of Digital disruption on the Australian energy industry is the focus of this research.
It investigates disruptive changes to the industry. Digital technologies that occur at a pace and magnitude that disrupts established ways of value creation, social interactions, business and the ways in which people within the digital space and culture, socially react and innovate for them is researched.
This thesis explores how decision-makers manage disruptive change with effective strategies that exploit progressive innovation. Building on existing literature on digital disruptions, the Disruptive Change Capability (DCC) Framework is analysed.
This framework provides an understanding of managing digitally disruptive change in enterprise organisations and how to benefit from future digital disruptions.
The motivation for this research is to investigate how digitally mature organisations can transform themselves, rapidly respond to opportunities and manage challenges, embracing disruptive change to create value and stay relevant in the disruptive business environment.
The primary research question is
‘How do enterprise decision makers understand the various aspects of digital disruption and manage disruptive change in the Australian energy industry?’
An interpretative perspective was used to research the topic and an explorative case study methodology was thus utilised.
This study collects decision-makers’ reactions, perceptions and feedback about the specific components of digital transformation. It presents a new set of organisational capabilities and learning, digital dynamic capabilities, digital business strategies, concepts, values and practices critical to the success and sustainability of the rapidly and technologically disruptive business environment in which the future enterprise will have to operate.
This research delivered five key findings; Digital Mindset, External Collaboration, Customer Focus, Constraints and Future Drivers. The relationships between the five concepts linked by their related themes constitute the major findings of the thesis and were found to have a grounding with digitalisation literature.
This research has identified the digital decision-makers’ recommendations to manage digital disruptions; an organisational mindset of shared vision, an agile, digital transformation organisational culture; a customer-focused dynamic capabilities and collaboration in building trust. Furthermore, it is essential for decision makers to encourage progressive innovation; embrace co-creation to maintain mutually beneficial relationships; retaining collective digital talents; remaining responsive, adaptive and
innovative as a key strategic priority; building networks with industry ecosystems, society, businesses and policy makers to indirectly influencing regulatory policies and investing in progressive technological innovation as future drivers that enable aspects of digitisation.
Key words:
Digital disruption, digital transformation, customer-focused, disruptive change capabilities, network ecosystems collaboration, energy policies, progressive innovation, innovative disruptive technologies, digitalisation
Background: Motivation is a key issue in people’s lives. Motivated people are more likely to accomplish the goals they set out to achieve. For this reason, it is essential to motivate people in their lives. At present, the world of information and communications technologies (ICT) is evolving rapidly, and humans are used to interacting with a large number of software applications. Therefore, it would be valuable to endow these apps with a motivating function. Objective: To identify the main characteristics of motivational software products that are based on motivational strategies and how they are used in order to pinpoint patterns and relationships. Method: A systematic mapping study of software applications that motivate users to achieve their goals. Results: We have retrieved large number of studies applying and combining multiple motivational strategies, leading to different ways of motivating users. Conclusion: We have built a knowledge base based on the connections/relationships between the employed motivational strategies, participant characteristics, the target behaviour to be encouraged or discouraged, and the devices on which motivational software runs.
Background: Exertion games are video games that require exercise. They are widely presented as health interventions, to encourage sedentary populations to take exercise at levels recommended by health professionals. Objectives: We consider whether games encourage acute exercise at levels sufficient to engender exercise-related health benefits, and in what conditions that occurs. Methods: We performed a scoping review of empirical research that examines whether exertion game play engenders exercise, searching Google Scholar, Scopus and PubMed. Results: From 3171 search records, we found 243 studies of acute short-term exercise in games. While some observed moderate levels of exertion, players of many games fail to meet recommended levels. Few games encouraged vigorous levels seen in sports. Variation in results for games across different studies suggests that exertion motivation is highly dependent on non-game contextual factors. There is evidence games make exercise more enjoyable or reduce perceived exertion, but many studies suffer the methodological problem of comparison with boring control conditions. Conclusions: Exergames have only been found comparable to exercise such as walking, jogging and dancing under very specific circumstances. To improve evidence for games as exercise interventions, we must improve study designs and focus on understanding better the circumstances likely to bring about genuine exergame exercise.
Information Systems (IS) researchers persistently examine how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) changes attitudes and behaviours but rarely leverage the persuasion literature when doing so. The hesitance of IS researchers to leverage persuasion literature may be due to this literature's well-documented complexity. This study aims to reduce the difficulty of understanding and applying persuasion theory within IS research. The study achieves this aim by developing a common frame of reference to help IS researchers to conceptualise persuasion and to conceptually differentiate persuasion from related concepts. In doing this, the study also comprehensively summarises existing research and theory and provides a set of suggestions to guide future IS research into persuasion and behaviour change.
This paper reviews the literature on gamification in different context.
“Dosis facit venenum,” or “the dose makes the poison,” as first expressed by Paracelsus, is a universally valid statement. Thus, being a little bit of a sedentary person makes a whole lot of difference when this behavior turns into a lifestyle. If combined with additional poor habits like imbalanced food intake, little physical activity becomes a number one risk factor in developing chronic diseases later on. What is lacking are motivational concepts and tools that pick up “active” as well as “less active couch potatoes” with the purpose to prevent serious health consequences by making sport activities more attractive, interactive, fun and engaging. Thus, lowering the barrier of overcoming one’s weaker self is pivotal. In this paper, we propose a novel concept and Android-based prototype of a serious game called Lazarus, which aims to prevent chronic disease by using motivational boosts to enhance physical exercise. 117 people helped gathering basic information for the game and another 10 people evaluated the concept adhering to a User Centered Design. The application takes advantage of an approach to reward physical real-life activity (doing sports) with virtual in-game benefits.
How do individuals in twelve-step fellowships like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) interpret and enact "anonymity?" In this paper, we answer this question through a mixed-methods investigation. Through secondary analysis of interview data from 26 participants and an online questionnaire (N=285) we found three major interpretations of anonymity among AA and NA members: "unidentifiability," "social contract," and "program over individual." While unidentifiability has been the focus of computing investigations, the other interpretations provide a significant and novel lens on anonymity. To understand how and when the unidentifiability interpretation was most likely to be enacted, we conducted a quantitative analysis of traces of activity in a large online recovery community. We observed that members were less likely to enact "unidentifiability" if they were more connected to the particular community and had more time in recovery. We provide implications for future research on context-specific anonymity and implications for design in online recovery spaces and similar sensitive contexts.
We describe a novel application for recommender systems -- helping marathon runners to run a new personal-best race-time -- by predicting a challenging, but achievable target-time, and by recommending a tailored race-plan to achieve this time. A comprehensive evaluation of prediction accuracy and race-plan quality is provided using a large-scale dataset with almost 400,000 runners from the last 12 years of the Chicago marathon.
Data intensive applications are backbone for sectors like—banking, insurance and retail industry. Data representation and workflow are two most important aspects of such applications. Although, data representation is catching-up with the latest trends, but for traditional sectors like Banking, Finance, Securities and Insurance (BFSI), any new technology or design trend takes a while before it is integrated into the applications. Such sectors try to minimize risk caused due to new technology environment. There is a wait and watch attitude towards new technology and new user experience. These sectors are the last to adopt the latest design trends. Back-office and mid-office applications have not changed much over the last 10–15 years. Some large banks from North America, Europe and Nordic regions are using applications which are more than 50 years old. Design trends like gamification are rarely used in banking sector. BFSI retail sector is changing fast with advent of new technology and better customer experience. New channels like mobility and tablet; touch enabled platforms like iOS and Android are changing the face of application design and behavior. Users expect similar behavior from the traditional and data intensive applications as well. These new platforms not only use the latest technologies and user experience but also make use of latest design trends which includes gamification. This paper looks at design trends which are shaping the digital media and their impact on traditional and data intensive sectors like banking, finance and insurance.
Regular physical activity has many physical, cognitive and emotional benefits. Health researchers have shown that there are also risks to too much sedentary behaviour, regardless of a person’s level of physical activity, and there are now anti-sedentary guidelines alongside the guidelines for physical activity. Exergames (games that require physical exertion) have been successful at encouraging physical activity through fun and engaging gameplay; however, an individual can be both physically active (e.g. by going for a jog in the morning) and sedentary (e.g. by sitting at a computer for the rest of the day). In this chapter, we analyse existing exertion games through the lens of the anti-sedentary guidelines to determine which types of games also meet the requirements for anti-sedentary game design. We review our own game designs in this space and conclude with an identification of design opportunities and research challenges for the new area of anti-sedentary game design.
The goal of persuasive games is to change behavior and attitudes in a desirable manner, e.g., to promote physical activity. Research has shown that personalized persuasive approaches are more successful than one-size-fits-all approaches. As a means for personalization, sex has been investigated with results showing that women are overall more persuadable than men. We argue that considering only a dichotomous sex-type categorization may not be able to fully capture the differences in the persuasiveness of persuasion strategies. To that end we apply a dimensional approach of capturing gender identity – femininity and masculinity. We investigate the relationship between masculinity, femininity, sex and the persuasiveness of ten persuasion strategies in an online study (n = 592). Results show that femininity is significantly associated with seven of the ten strategies, while sex does only show differences for two strategies, suggesting gender identity could be a reliable variable for personalizing persuasive games.
Personalized technologies aim to enhance user experience by taking into account users’ interests, preferences, and other relevant information. Persuasive technologies aim to modify user attitudes, intentions, or behavior through computer-human dialogue and social influence. While both personalized and persuasive technologies influence user interaction and behavior, we posit that this influence could be significantly increased if the two technologies were combined to create personalized and persuasive systems. For example, the persuasive power of a one-size-fits-all persuasive intervention could be enhanced by considering the users being influenced and their susceptibility to the persuasion being offered. Likewise, personalized technologies could cash in on increased success, in terms of user satisfaction, revenue, and user experience, if their services used persuasive techniques. Hence, the coupling of personalization and persuasion has the potential to enhance the impact of both technologies. This new, developing area clearly offers mutual benefits to both research areas, as we illustrate in this special issue.
This article describes research that aims to encourage physical activity through a novel pervasive gaming paradigm. Data from a wearable accelerometer are logged wirelessly to a cell phone and control the animation of an avatar that represents the player in a virtual race game with other players over the cellular network. Winners are declared every day and players with an excess of activity points can spend some to get hints in mental games of the suite, like Sudoku. The racing game runs in the background throughout the day and every little move counts. As the gaming platform is embedded in the daily routine of players, it may act as a strong behavioral modifier and increase everyday physical activity other than volitional sporting exercise. Such physical activity (e.g., taking the stairs), is termed NEAT and was shown to play a major role in obesity prevention and intervention. A pilot experiment demonstrates that players are engaged in NEAT-o-Games and become more physically active while having a good dosage of fun.
Many Recommender Systems use either Collaborative Filter-ing (CF) or Content-Based (CB) techniques to receive recom-mendations for products. Both approaches have advantages and weaknesses. Combining the two approaches together can overcome most weaknesses. However, most hybrid systems combine the two methods in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper we present an hybrid approach for recommen-dations, where a user profile is a weighted combination of user stereotypes, created automatically through a clustering process. Each stereotype is defined by an ontology of item attributes. Our approach provides good recommendations for items that were rated in the past and is also able to handle new items that were never observed by the system. Our algorithm is implemented in a commercial system for recommending media items. The system is envisioned to function as personalized media (audio, video, print) service within mobile phones, online media portals, sling boxes, etc. It is currently under development within Deutsche Telekom Laboratories -Innovations of Integrated Communi-cation projects.
Exergames combine entertainment and exercise in an effort to encourage people to be more physically active. Although exergames
require active input, interactions are less physical than those experienced in real-world exercise. Interactions can feel
artificial, limiting the captivating experience exergames aim to provide. To address this problem, haptics have been proposed as a means of providing additional feedback to players through the sense of touch. However, there is very
little empirical evidence supporting the benefits of haptics in exergames. To address this, we have identified and evaluated
three ways in which haptic feedback can enhance exergames: by helping to balance group exercise among people of different
fitness levels, by guiding players toward safe and healthy interaction, and by increasing peoples’ sense of virtual presence
in exergames. We present three novel exergames incorporating haptic feedback, and report on experiments investigating their
success. We find that haptics which are consistent with actions displayed on-screen increase immersion and improve enjoyment.
However, we discover pitfalls when using haptics to represent phenomena that do not have a physical basis. These results allow
us to present a set of design issues for haptic feedback in exergames.
KeywordsExergames–haptics–force-feedback–exercise video games–exertion interfaces–active games
Contemporary lifestyle is becoming increasingly sedentary with no or little physical activity. We propose a novel design for physical activity motivating games that leverages engagement with games in order to motivate users to perform physical activity as part of traditionally sedentary playing. This paper focuses on the wearable activity interface for physical activity motivating games. We discuss the activity interface design considerations, present physical activity processing details, and analyse some observations of user interaction with the activity interface.
A sedentary lifestyle is a contributing factor to chronic diseases, and it is often correlated with obesity. To promote an increase in physical activity, we created a social computer game, Fish'n'Steps, which links a player's daily foot step count to the growth and activity of an animated virtual character, a fish in a fish tank. As further encouragement, some of the players' fish tanks in- cluded other players' fish, thereby creating an environment of both cooperation and competition. In a fourteen-week study with nineteen participants, the game served as a catalyst for promoting exercise and for improving game players' at- titudes towards physical activity. Furthermore, although most player's enthusi- asm in the game decreased after the game's first two weeks, analyzing the re- sults using Prochaska's Transtheoretical Model of Behavioral Change suggests that individuals had, by that time, established new routines that led to healthier patterns of physical activity in their daily lives. Lessons learned from this study underscore the value of such games to encourage rather than provide negative reinforcement, especially when individuals are not meeting their own expecta- tions, to foster long-term behavioral change.
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
Contemporary lifestyle has become increasingly sedentary: little physical (sports, exercises) and much sedentary (TV, computers) activity. The nature of sedentary activity is self-reinforcing, such that increasing physical and decreasing sedentary activity is difficult. We present a novel approach aimed at combating this problem in the context of computer games. Rather than explicitly changing the amount of physical and sedentary activity a person sets out to perform, we propose a new game design that leverages user engagement to generate out of game motivation to perform physical activity while playing. In our design, players gain virtual game rewards in return for real physical activity performed. Here we present and evaluate an application of our design to the game Neverball. We adapted Neverball by reducing the time allocated to accomplish the game tasks and motivated players to perform physical activity by offering time based rewards. An empirical evaluation involving 180 participants shows that the participants performed more physical activity, decreased the amount of sedentary playing time, and did not report a decrease in perceived enjoyment of playing the activity motivating version of Neverball.
Exertion games require investing physical effort. The fact that such games can support physical health is tempered by our limited understanding of how to design for engaging exertion experiences. This paper introduces the Exertion Framework as a way to think and talk about Exertion Games, both for their formative design and summative analysis. Our Exertion Framework is based on the ways in which we can conceive of the body investing in game-directed exertion, supported by four perspectives on the body (the Responding Body, Moving Body, Sensing Body and Relating Body) and three perspectives on gaming (rules, play and context). The paper illustrates how this framework was derived from prior systems and theory, and presents a case study of how it has been used to inspire novel exertion interactions.
In this paper, we propose design strategies for persuasive technologies that help people who want to change their everyday behaviors. Our strategies use theory and prior work to substantially extend a set of existing design goals. Our extensions specifically account for social characteristics and other tactics that should be supported by persuasive technologies that target long-term discretionary use throughout everyday life. We used these strategies to design and build a system that encourages people to lead a physically active lifestyle. Results from two field studies of the system—a three-week trial and a three-month experiment—have shown that the system was successful at helping people maintain a more physically active lifestyle and validate the usefulness of the strategies.
Innovation in textiles and clothing has embodied various combinations of new and existing materials to meet conventional needs of comfort and fashion. Interactive and intelligent textiles are emerging as many new textile materials are being used to form sensors in garments to intimately interact with the human form. Interactive textiles typically contain sensors located within a garment to detect physiological functions that are wirelessly connected to digital infrastructure and application specific software. These devices can be realised in conventional garments and have scope for application in diverse fields including entertainment, education, sport, military and medicine. Position and Motion Sensing devices will be discussed for each application, in terms of the value proposition, performance requirements, regulations, and existing technology. A case study of an entertainment device that uses limb motion to achieve an imaginary instrument, the Wearable Instrument Shirt (WIS) will be discussed in this context. The WIS combines a wearable sensor interface with software to map gestures and audio data files to form an easy-to-use gesture driven instrument that allows real-time interactive musical performances without any need for significant instrument or computer skills.
It has become clear recently that the epidemic of type 2 diabetes sweeping the globe is associated with decreased levels of physical activity and an increase in obesity. Incorporating appropriate and sufficient physical activity into one's life is an essential component of achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and overall health, especially for those with type II diabetes mellitus. Regular physical activity can have a positive impact by lowering blood glucose, helping the body to be more efficient at using insulin. There are other substantial benefits for patients with diabetes, including prevention of cardiovascular disease, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and obesity. Several complications of utilizing a self-care treatment methodology involving exercise include (1) patients may not know how much activity that they engage in and (2) health-care providers do not have objective measurements of how much activity their patients perform. However, several technological advances have brought a variety of activity monitoring devices to the market that can address these concerns. Ranging from simple pedometers to multisensor devices, the different technologies offer varying levels of accuracy, comfort, and reliability. The key notion is that by providing feedback to the patient, motivation can be increased and targets can be set and aimed toward. Although these devices are not specific to the treatment of diabetes, the importance of physical activity in treating the disease makes an understanding of these devices important. This article reviews these physical activity monitors and describes the advantages and disadvantages of each.
The hypothesis that "any response A will reinforce any other response B, if and only if the independent rate of A is greater than that of B," is tested in experiments with Cebus monkeys and children. The relativity of reinforcement becomes apparent. The response with the highest independent rate of occurrence serves as a universal reinforcer, while responses with low rates of occurrence gradually fail to reinforce any other responses. This relationship leads to a hierarchy of reinforcers for an organism. (17 ref.)
An exploration of the way videogames mount arguments and make expressive statements about the world that analyzes their unique persuasive power in terms of their computational properties.
Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; they represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, Ian Bogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing on the 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogost analyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames in particular. The field of media studies already analyzes visual rhetoric, the art of using imagery and visual representation persuasively. Bogost argues that videogames, thanks to their basic representational mode of procedurality (rule-based representations and interactions), open a new domain for persuasion; they realize a new form of rhetoric. Bogost calls this new form "procedural rhetoric," a type of rhetoric tied to the core affordances of computers: running processes and executing rule-based symbolic manipulation. He argues further that videogames have a unique persuasive power that goes beyond other forms of computational persuasion. Not only can videogames support existing social and cultural positions, but they can also disrupt and change these positions themselves, leading to potentially significant long-term social change. Bogost looks at three areas in which videogame persuasion has already taken form and shows considerable potential: politics, advertising, and learning.
Skinner outlines a science of behavior which generates its own laws through an analysis of its own data rather than securing them by reference to a conceptual neural process. "It is toward the reduction of seemingly diverse processes to simple laws that a science of behavior naturally directs itself. At the present time I know of no simplification of behavior that can be claimed for a neurological fact. Increasingly greater simplicity is being achieved, but through a systematic treatment of behavior at its own level." The results of behavior studies set problems for neurology, and in some cases constitute the sole factual basis for neurological constructs. The system developed in the present book is objective and descriptive. Behavior is regarded as either respondent or operant. Respondent behavior is elicited by observable stimuli, and classical conditioning has utilized this type of response. In the case of operant behavior no correlated stimulus can be detected when the behavior occurs. The factual part of the book deals largely with this behavior as studied by the author in extensive researches on the feeding responses of rats. The conditioning of such responses is compared with the stimulus conditioning of Pavlov. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of "reflex reserve," a process which is built up during conditioning and exhausted during extinction, and on the concept of reflex strength. The chapter headings are as follows: a system of behavior; scope and method; conditioning and extinction; discrimination of a stimulus; some functions of stimuli; temporal discrimination of the stimulus; the differentiation of a response; drive; drive and conditioning; other variables affecting reflex strength; behavior and the nervous system; and conclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Can computers change what you think and do? Can they motivate you to stop smoking, persuade you to buy insurance, or convince you to join the Army? "Yes, they can," says Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase "Captology"(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers.In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change peoples attitudes and behavior. Technology designers, marketers, researchers, consumers-anyone who wants to leverage or simply understand the persuasive power of interactive technology-will appreciate the compelling insights and illuminating examples found inside. Persuasive technology can be controversial-and it should be. Who will wield this power of digital influence? And to what end? Now is the time to survey the issues and explore the principles of persuasive technology, and B.J. Fogg has written this book to be your guide.
Serious games aim to be both fun and playable games but at the same time be useful for a non-entertainment purpose. This poses an interesting challenge to the design process; how can we ensure that the design allows both for fun and engagement while at the same time fulfilling the non-entertainment purpose? The game design for educational games (a branch of serious games) is dependent on the topic (training objective) and under what circumstances the game will be used. We propose a pragmatic design approach where three design goals are maintained simultaneously: (1) to create an engaging game, (2) to properly cater for the training objective, and (3) to allow the training context surrounding the game to influence design decisions. We will go through a range of design issues and show how the three design goals are interdependent and how a balanced design can fulfill all three. For instance, the training objective may impede a straightforward design of rules and goals. The training context will have an affect how the challenges are constructed and the way learning through games can be carried out. To illustrate this approach the design process of Foreign Ground, a serious game for training, is presented and discussed.
Over the last decades, substantial epidemiological evidence has been accumulated on the protective role of increased physical activity (PA) for the prevention and management of certain chronic diseases. To better address the impact of physical activity on health, valid and reliable instruments for its measurement are essential. Because of its dimensionality, a large number of methods exist for the assessment of various aspects of physical activity. This review provides a summary of available tools for measuring physical activity and total energy expenditure (TEE) and addresses their advantages and limitations in assessing PA in epidemiological surveys. The selection of the appropriate method for a specific survey should be based on criteria such as experimental goals, sample size, budget, cultural and social/environmental factors, physical burden for the subject, and statistical factors such as validity and reliability. The instruments that are very precise in measuring total energy expenditure such as doubly-labeled water method and direct and indirect calorimetry tend to be impractical on a population basis. On the other hand, methods such as self-report techniques are applicable for epidemiological studies, but they lack accuracy in measuring energy expenditure (EE).
In this work, a system for recognizing activities in the home setting using a set of small and simple state-change sensors
is introduced. The sensors are designed to be “tape on and forget” devices that can be quickly and ubiquitously installed
in home environments. The proposed sensing system presents an alternative to sensors that are sometimes perceived as invasive,
such as cameras and microphones. Unlike prior work, the system has been deployed in multiple residential environments with
non-researcher occupants. Preliminary results on a small dataset show that it is possible to recognize activities of interest
to medical professionals such as toileting, bathing, and grooming with detection accuracies ranging from 25% to 89% depending
on the evaluation criteria used.
On-line games have been a highly profitable e-commerce application in recent years. The market value of on-line games is increasing markedly and number of players is rapidly growing. The reasons that people play on-line games is an important area of research. This study views on-line games as entertainment technology. However, while most past studies have focused on task-oriented technology, predictors of entertainment-oriented technology adoption have seldom been addressed.This study applies the technology acceptance model (TAM) that incorporates social influences and flow experience as belief-related constructs to predict users’ acceptance of on-line games. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 233 users about their perceptions of on-line games. Overall, the results reveal that social norms, attitude, and flow experience explain about 80% of game playing. The implications of this study are discussed.
Considerable research has demonstrated that playing violent video games can increase aggression. The theoretical framework upon which a good deal of this research has rested is known as the General Aggression Model (GAM; [Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27–51]). The current study tested an assumption of the GAM by examining if the dispositional trait of anger moderated the relation between violent video games and aggression. A total of 167 undergraduate students (79 females, 88 males) first completed a measure of anger and were then randomly assigned to play either a non-violent or violent video game. After the video game play period, participants completed ambiguous story stems in order to assess aggression. Consistent with predictions of the GAM, anger significantly moderated the effect of video game violence on aggression. Specifically, participants who were angry were more affected by violent video games than participants who were not angry.
This paper presents a systematic design approach for constructing neural classifiers that are capable of classifying human activities using a triaxial accelerometer. The philosophy of our design approach is to apply a divide-and-conquer strategy that separates dynamic activities from static activities preliminarily and recognizes these two different types of activities separately. Since multilayer neural networks can generate complex discriminating surfaces for recognition problems, we adopt neural networks as the classifiers for activity recognition. An effective feature subset selection approach has been developed to determine significant feature subsets and compact classifier structures with satisfactory accuracy. Experimental results have successfully validated the effectiveness of the proposed recognition scheme.
Ubiquitous computing technologies create new opportunities for pre- ventive healthcare researchers to deploy behavior modification strategies out- side of clinical settings. In this paper, we describe how strategies for motivating behavior change might be embedded within usage patterns of a typical elec- tronic device. This interaction model differs substantially from prior approaches to behavioral modification such as CD-ROMs: sensor-enabled technology can drive interventions that are timelier, tailored, subtle, and even fun. To explore these ideas, we developed a prototype system named ViTo. On one level, ViTo functions as a universal remote control for a home entertainment system. The interface of this device, however, is designed in such a way that it may unobtru- sively promote a reduction in the user's television viewing while encouraging an increase in the frequency and quantity of non-sedentary activities. The de- sign of ViTo demonstrates how a variety of behavioral science strategies for motivating behavior change can be carefully woven into the operation of a common consumer electronic device. Results of an exploratory evaluation of a single participant using the system in an instrumented home facility are pre- sented.
We are developing a preventative health cell phone application that helps motivate teenage girls to exercise by exploiting their social desire to stay connected with their peers. We targeted girls because they are more likely to become less active throughout adolescence and are more likely to use dangerous techniques for losing weight. The intent of Chick Clique is to provide information at opportune times in order to modify the behaviors of girls and ultimately lead to improved health habits. Our study investigated how collecting, sharing and comparing pers onal fitness information impacts activity level and health awareness.
Exertion as an interface for computing technology has generated increased attention recently due to the belief that it can address health issues such as obesity, contribute to social benefits, and open new markets for entertainment industries. We are proposing a workshop on this topic to bring researchers and industry participants from related areas together to strengthen the scientific influence on this field and promote a multidisciplinary agenda. The workshop will support the development of future collaborative efforts in this rapidly growing area.
Personalizing the playing experience is a key factor in making players of computer games feel involved in the virtual world; however, current Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games only to a limited degree allocate development or running resources towards facilitating a personalized experience. In Pen and Paper Role Playing Games, the player-controlled characters form a key component in facilitating the formation of a personalized experience. In these games, characters are often more than the association of stats and skills popular in online games, and several approaches towards utilizing the character-based information directly to personalize the game playing have been developed, e.g. personality systems. Some of these systems can be integrated into online games, providing a realistic and financially feasible method for improving the ability of these games to personalize the experience to the individual players.
Physical activity motivating game design encourages players to perform real physical activity in order to gain virtual game rewards. Previous research into activity motivating games showed that they have the potential to motivate players to perform physical activity, while retaining the enjoyment of playing. However, it was discovered that a uniform motivating approach resulted in different levels of activity performed by players of varying gaming skills. In this work we present and evaluate two adaptive recommendation-based techniques, which aim to balance the amount of physical activity performed by players by adapting the level of motivation to their observed gaming skills. Experimental evaluation showed that the adaptive techniques not only increase the amount of activity performed and retain the enjoyment of playing, but also balance the amount of activity performed by players of varying gaming skills and allow for game difficulty to be set in a player-dependent manner.
Lack of exercise is known to be detrimental to health, and various exercise machines that can be used indoors in a convenient manner are available. However, because expertise is required to ascertain which exercise to do and for how long, people sometimes sustain injuries by exercising excessively and find it difficult to sufficiently benefit from exercising. Therefore, fitness machines with automatic controls are being developed so that people can exercise efficiently, and exercise programs are being designed with game elements to encourage regular exercise. Monotonous exercise makes it difficult for people to experience a sense of accomplishment while exercising, and if the degree of difficulty is not set properly, people cannot perform the appropriate amount of exercise. The present study proposes a fitness game method in which heart rate is measured in real time while playing a game and the contents of the game are actively adjusted based on heart rate, thus allowing users to perform sufficient amounts of exercise and experience a sense of accomplishment. A fitness game based on boxercise movements was designed based on the present method and then evaluated.
Participation in regular physical activity (PA) is critical to sustaining good health. While a few attempts have been made
to use internet-based interventions to promote PA, no system review has been conducted in determining the effectiveness of
the intervention. The purpose of this study was to conduct a review under the framework of persuasive technology (PT). Based
on a comprehensive of literature search, nice experimental studies were identified and evaluated using the PT functional triad
defined by Fogg in 2003[1]. It was found that only two studies led to short-term impact in promoting PA and, furthermore,
two studies have found that the intervention based traditional print materials worked better. From a perspective of PT, none
of the studies designed its intervention based on the framework of captology and few took full advantages of PT functions.
Designing new-generation, PT based internet intervention and examining related human factors are urgently needed.
The global obesity epidemic has prompted our community to explore the potential for technology to play a stronger role in promoting healthier lifestyles. Although there are several examples of successful games based on focused physical interaction, persuasive applications that integrate into everyday life have had more mixed results. This underscores a need for designs that encourage physical activity while addressing fun, sustainability, and behavioral change. This note suggests a new perspective, inspired in part by the social nature of many everyday fitness applications and by the successful encouragement of long term play in massively multiplayer online games. We first examine the game design literature to distill a set of principles for discussing and comparing applications. We then use these principles to analyze an existing application. Finally, we present Kukini, a design for an everyday fitness game.
Obesity and lack of physical fitness are increasingly common in adults as well as children and can negatively affect health. Regular physical activity, such as jogging or training in a fitness center, is rec- ommended by physiologists to fight obesity and improve one's fitness, but usually requires considerable motivation. Recently, researchers as well as companies have proposed a few fitness games, i.e. videogames where users play by performing physical exercises, in which game ele- ments (such as graphics and gameplay) are used to encourage people to exercise regularly. This paper proposes a fitness game system which aims at combining arcade-style game graphics, physiological sensors (e.g. heart rate monitor, 3D accelerometer), and an adaptation engine. The adaptation engine considers personal information provided by the user (e.g., age and gender), her current heart rate and movements, and in- formation collected during previous game sessions to adjust the required intensity of physical exercises through context-aware and user-adaptive dynamic adaptations of graphics and gameplay. Besides describing the general system, the paper presents two implemented games and a pre- liminary user evaluation, which also led us to introduce in the system a 3D virtual human.
The confluence of decades of computer science and computer engineering research in multimodal interaction (e.g., speech and gesture recognition), machine learning (e.g., classification and feature extraction), software (e.g., web browsers, distributed agents), electronics (e.g., energy-efficient microprocessors, head-mounted displays), design methodology in user-centered design, and rapid prototyping have enabled a new class of computers-wearable computers. The lecture takes the viewpoint of a potential designer or researcher in wearable computing. Designing wearable computers requires attention to many different factors because of the computer's closeness to the body and its use while performing other tasks. For the purposes of discussion, we have created the UCAMP framework, which consists of the following factors: user, corporal, attention, manipulation, and perception. Each of these factors and their importance is described. A number of example prototypes developed by the authors, as well as by other researchers, are used to illustrate these concepts. Wearable computers have established their first foothold in several application domains, such as vehicle and aircraft maintenance and manufacturing, inspection, language translation, and other areas. The lecture continues by describing the next step in the evolution of wearable computers, namely, context awareness. Context-aware computing takes into account a user's state and surroundings, and the mobile computer modifies its behavior based on this information. A user's context can be quite rich, consisting of attributes such as physical location, physiological state, personal history, daily behavioral patterns, and so forth. If a human assistant were given such context, he or she would make decisions in a proactive fashion, anticipating user needs, and acting as a proactive assistant. The goal is to enable mobile computers to play an analogous role, exploiting context information to significantly reduce demands on human attention. Context-aware intelligent agents can deliver relevant information when a user needs that information. These data make possible many exciting new applications, such as augmented reality, context-aware collaboration, and augmented manufacturing. The combined studies and research reported in this lecture suggest a number of useful guidelines for designing wearable computing devices. Also included with the guidelines is a list of questions that designers should consider when beginning to design a wearable computer. The research directions section emphasizes remaining challenges and trends in the areas of user interface, modalities of interaction, and wearable cognitive augmentation. Finally, we summarize the most important challenges and conclude with a projection of future directions in wearable computing.
Although player enjoyment is central to computer games, there is currently no accepted model of player enjoyment in games. There are many heuristics in the literature, based on elements such as the game interface, mechanics, gameplay, and narrative. However, there is a need to integrate these heuristics into a validated model that can be used to design, evaluate, and understand enjoyment in games. We have drawn together the various heuristics into a concise model of enjoyment in games that is structured by flow. Flow, a widely accepted model of enjoyment, includes eight elements that, we found, encompass the various heuristics from the literature. Our new model, GameFlow, consists of eight elements -- concentration, challenge, skills, control, clear goals, feedback, immersion, and social interaction. Each element includes a set of criteria for achieving enjoyment in games. An initial investigation and validation of the GameFlow model was carried out by conducting expert reviews of two real-time strategy games, one high-rating and one low-rating, using the GameFlow criteria. The result was a deeper understanding of enjoyment in real-time strategy games and the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the GameFlow model as an evaluation tool. The GameFlow criteria were able to successfully distinguish between the high-rated and low-rated games and identify why one succeeded and the other failed. We concluded that the GameFlow model can be used in its current form to review games; further work will provide tools for designing and evaluating enjoyment in games.
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.
We present a probabilistic model of user affect designed to allow an intelligent agent to recognise multiple user emotions during the interaction with an educational computer game. Our model is based on a probabilistic framework that deals with the high level of uncertainty involved in recognizing a variety of user emotions by combining in a Dynamic Bayesian Network information on both the causes and effects of emotional reactions. The part of the framework that reasons from causes to emotions (diagnostic model) implements a theoretical model of affect, the OCC model, which accounts for how emotions are caused by one's appraisal of the current context in terms of one's goals and preferences. The advantage of using the OCC model is that it provides an affective agent with explicit information not only on which emotions a user feels but also why, thus increasing the agent's capability to effectively respond to the users' emotions. The challenge is that building the model requires having mechanisms to assess user goals and how the environment fits them, a form of plan recognition. In this paper, we illustrate how we built the predictive part of the affective model by combining general theories with empirical studies to adapt the theories to our target application domain. We then present results on the model's accuracy, showing that the model achieves good accuracy on several of the target emotions. We also discuss the model's limitations, to open the ground for the next stage of the work, i.e., complementing the model with diagnostic information.
Physical inactivity among children is a serious public health problem. It has been suggested that high levels of screen time are contributory factors that encourage sedentary lifestyles in young people. As physical inactivity and obesity levels continue to rise in young people, it has been proposed that new-generation active computer- and video-console games (otherwise known as "exergaming") may offer the opportunity to contribute to young people's energy expenditure during their free time. Although studies have produced some encouraging results regarding the energy costs involved in playing active video-console games, the energy costs of playing the authentic versions of activity-based video games are substantially larger, highlighting that active gaming is no substitute for real sports and activities. A small number of exergaming activities engage children in moderate-intensity activity, but most do not. Only 3 very small trials have considered the effects of exergaming on physical activity levels and/or other health outcomes in children. Evidence from these trials has been mixed; positive trends for improvements in some health outcomes in the intervention groups were noted in 2 trials. No adequately powered randomized, controlled trial has been published to date, and no trial has assessed the long-term impact of exergaming on children's health. We now need high-quality randomized, controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of exergaming, as well as its clinical relevance; until such studies take place, we should remain cautious about its ability to positively affect children's health.
This study examined the links between childhood obesity, activity participation and television and video game use in a nationally representative sample of children (N = 2831) ages 1-12 using age-normed body mass index (BMI) ratings. Results indicated that while television use was not related to children's weight status, video game use was. Children with higher weight status played moderate amounts of electronic games, while children with lower weight status played either very little or a lot of electronic games. Interaction analyses revealed that this curvilinear relationship applied to children under age 8 and that girls, but not boys, with higher weight status played more video games. Children ages 9-12 with lower weight status used the computer (non-game) for moderate amounts of time, while those with higher weight status used the computer either very little or a lot. This was also true for the relationship between print use and weight status for children of all ages. Results also indicated that children with higher weight status spent more time in sedentary activities than those with lower weight status.
To evaluate the relationships between the time spent on sedentary activities (computer usage, video game playing, television viewing, and reading) and physical inactivity in a sample of youth (aged 12-19 years) from the 2000-2001 Canadian Community Health Survey.
The study sample included 7982 youth (4034 males, 3948 females) across Canada (mean age: 15.61 years, SD: 2.23 years). Weekly time spent on computers, video games, television, and reading during leisure-time was obtained through self-reported questionnaires. Physical inactivity was determined by respondents' daily energy expenditure assessed through a physical activity questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between sedentary activities and physical inactivity respectively by gender. Sociodemographic variables, health status, and overweight status were controlled in the analysis.
A substantial proportion of Canadian youth was inactive: 50.3% of males and 67.8% of females. Controlling for sociodemographic variables, health status, and body mass index, television viewing was significantly associated with physical inactivity for both males and females regardless of their overweight status. However, computer usage was associated with physical activity among males, and reading was associated with physical activity among females.
There is a complex inter-relationship between sedentary behaviors and physical inactivity, highlighting the need for targeted interventions addressing patterns of sedentary behavior engagement. Reducing time spent on television viewing may be one plausible strategy within such interventions in reducing physical inactivity among youth.
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