Design Strategies for Playful Technologies to Support Light-intensity Physical Activity in the Workplace

Moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity has an established preventative role in obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. However recent evidence suggests that sitting time affects health negatively independent of whether adults meet prescribed physical activity guidelines. Since many of us spend long hours daily sitting in front of a host of electronic screens, this is cause for concern. In this paper, we describe a set of three prototype digital games created for encouraging light-intensity physical activity during short breaks at work. The design of these kinds of games is a complex process that must consider motivation strategies, interaction methodology, usability and ludic aspects. We present design guidelines for technologies that encourage physical activity in the workplace that we derived from a user evaluation using the prototypes. Although the design guidelines can be seen as general principles, we conclude that they have to be considered differently for different workplace cultures and workspaces. Our study was conducted with users who have some experience playing casual games on their mobile devices and were able and willing to increase their physical activity.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Video: http://living.media.mit.edu/projects/see-saw

Visual complexity, player experience, performance and physical exertion in motion-based games for older adults

Motion-based video games can have a variety of benefits for the players and are increasingly applied in physical therapy, rehabilitation and prevention for older adults. However, little is known about how this audience experiences playing such games, how the player experience affects the way older adults interact with motion-based games, and how this can relate to therapy goals. In our work, we decompose the player experience of older adults engaging with motion-based games, focusing on the effects of manipulations of the game representation through the visual channel (visual complexity), since it is the primary interaction modality of most games and since vision impairments are common amongst older adults. We examine the effects of different levels of visual complexity on player experience, performance, and exertion in a study with fifteen participants. Our results show that visual complexity affects the way games are perceived in two ways: First, while older adults do have preferences in terms of visual complexity of video games, notable effects were only measurable following drastic variations. Second, perceived exertion shifts depending on the degree of visual complexity. These findings can help inform the design of motion-based games for therapy and rehabilitation for older adults

Towards procedural level generation for rehabilitation

This paper introduces the concept of procedural content generation for physical rehabilitation. In this initial study a ski-slalom game is developed on the Wii platform that procedurally places the gates of the game according to player performance. A preliminary game evaluation study is conducted on patients with injured legs and showcases the efficiency of the procedural gate generation mechanism tailoring the game difficulty to match rehabilitation goals. The study also validates certain usability aspects of the patients.peer-reviewe

UPPERCARE: a community aware environment for post-surgical musculoskeletal recovery of elderly patients

Trabalho apresentado na Conferência Internacional realizada em Wellington, Nova Zelândia, de 26-28 de abril de 2017Disability from musculoskeletal diseases and comorbidities may lead to the worsening of social and economic well-being through a multitude of paths. Moreover since in European Union (EU) Member States it is projected that those aged 65 and over will become a much larger share (rising from 17% to 30% of the population), and those aged 80 and over (rising from 5% to 12%) will almost become as numerous as the young population in 2060, there is a great potential for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for addressing the present and future living arrangements in older people. The UPPERCARE system is meant to affect positively both the intergenerational and partners care since it contributes to decrease usability barriers and promote collaborative environments for informal and self-care. UPPERCARE is a new approach for integrated care supported by ICT systems and services, focusing on post-operative rehabilitation of musculoskeletal pathologies, having as a case study the knee post-operative scenarios of prosthetic care. This paper presents the UPPERCARE system, that provides an integrated care solution, supported ICT, for empowering self-care and adherence to rehabilitation plans through natural interfaces, gamification and cross-modal paths for community care collaboration. The system addresses current barriers from technological, clinical, social and organisational perspectives in a multidisciplinary environment. Special attention is given to the patients’ needs and behaviours entailing the participation of a wide care community, including clinical and non-clinical people, associations, institutions and authorities) through an user driven interaction within the system.This work was supported by Project ”NanoSTIMA: Macroto-Nano Human Sensing: Towards Integrated Multimodal Health Monitoring and Analytics/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER- 000016” financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Benefits and Limitations of Exergames as a Leisure Time Stimulator of Physical Activity of Children and Youth

The purpose of this article is to present possible uses of new interactive games, when the gamer must be obligatorily physically active. Playing a game, he is forced to have a good personal level of physical fitness, making him fit for the purpose of a game. Additionally, playing a game actively reduces the phenomenon of sedentary behavior in children and youth. Exergames appear to be a promising tool for the increase of the daily dose of movement in children and youth, which will affect the improvement of their physical and health condition.3946347825Studia Edukacyjn

Simplifying Fitness Games for Users with Learning Disabilities

Motivating people with learning disabilities (LD) to carry out physical exercises is a difficult task. Simplified fitness games can address this problem. Yet we do not know much about the design characteristics of the fitness games for this particular user group. Based on Rouse’s process model, this paper explores the design characteristics in three development phases: ‘conceptual outline’, ‘implementation’ and ‘outcome’. A mixed-method approach has been adopted. First, interviews and observations were conducted. Based on the qualitative findings and a literature review, a questionnaire was generated addressing the important design characteristics in each phases. The questionnaire surveyed 235 people from both game and healthcare industries to assess their agreement to the design characteristics. By identifying critical design characteristics in each phase, our paper provides guidance for an inclusive and nuanced approach to designing games for the users with LD. It identifies concepts in fitness games that intrinsically motivate physical activities.

The physical and cognitive benefits of casual exergame play

Exercise can provide both physical and cognitive benefits to overall health, including long-term and short-term effects on wellness. In order to get these benefits, it is recommended that people perform at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a day; however, many people do not get the recommended amount of exercise per day, which can result in health problems such as obesity and chronic disease. In this thesis, we propose a new genre of games called casual exergames, which we define as exergames that are designed to motivate people to exercise in small chunks of time multiple times throughout the day. Casual exergames have three advantages. First, games have been shown to have a strong motivation pull to play (i.e., people enjoy playing games), and casual games – those designed to be played in small chunks of time – have seen huge market success. Thus, we feel that applying casual game design to exergames will provide players with an enjoyable experience while performing physical activity. Second, research supports the approach of breaking exercise into small chunks, as the physical benefits of three moderate-intensity short bouts of physical activity (each lasting about 10 minutes) are similar to those of one continuous 30-minute bout. Thus, there should be physical benefits of casual exergame play. Third, short bouts of exercise have been shown to yield acute cognitive benefits. Thus a well-designed casual exergame should also produce measurable benefits to cognition. Following this approach, we designed and implemented a causal exergame called GrabApple, using the Microsoft Kinect sensor to detect body movement. Through the evaluation of GrabApple (carried out in three research studies), we show that a well-designed casual exergame can: 1) yield physical activity levels (similar to exercise on a treadmill) that meet the guidelines for moderate-intensity physical activity; 2) produce significant acute benefits to cognition over playing a sedentary version of the game; and 3) be integrated into a school setting with the potential of helping kids achieve physical activity thresholds, while also helping them to refocus throughout the day. In general, our game may encourage adults and school-aged children to get the recommended levels of exercise throughout the day and also obtain the acute cognitive benefits provided by physical activity

Observations on Experience and Flow in Movement-Based Interaction

Movement-based interfaces assume that their users move. Users have to perform exercises, they have to dance, they have to golf or football, or they want to train particular bodily skills. Many examples of those interfaces exist, sometimes asking for subtle interaction between user and interface and sometimes asking for ‘brute force’ interaction between user and interface. Often these interfaces mediate between players of a game. Obviously, one of the players may be a virtual human. We embed this interface research in ambient intelligence and entertainment computing research, and the interfaces we consider are not only mediating, but they also ‘add’ intelligence to the interaction. Intelligent movement-based interfaces, being able to know and learn about their users, should also be able to provide means to keep their users engaged in the interaction. Issues that will be discussed in this chapter are ‘flow’ and ‘immersion’ for movement-based interfaces and we look at the possible role of interaction synchrony to measure and support engagement

Autism and exergaming: effects on repetitive behaviors and cognition

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that leads to impairment in social skills and delay in language development, and results in repetitive behaviors and restricted interests that impede academic and social involvement. Physical exercise has been shown to decrease repetitive behaviors in autistic children and improve cognitive function across the life-span. Exergaming combines physical and mental exercise simultaneously by linking physical activity movements to video game control and may yield better compliance with exercise. In this investigation, two pilot studies explored the potential behavioral and cognitive benefits of exergaming. In Pilot I, twelve children with autism spectrum disorders completed a control task and an acute bout of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR); in Pilot II, ten additional youths completed an acute bout of cyber cycling. Repetitive behaviors and executive function were measured before and after each activity. Repetitive behaviors significantly decreased, while performance on Digits Backwards improved following the exergaming conditions compared with the control condition. Additional research is needed to replicate these findings, and to explore the application of exergaming for the management of behavioral disturbance and to increase cognitive control in children on the autism spectrum