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

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and evaluation of three prototype digital games aimed at encouraging light-intensity physical activity during work breaks, providing guidelines adaptable to different workplace cultures.

Contribution

It introduces novel design guidelines for playful technologies that promote physical activity in the workplace based on user evaluations of prototypes.

Findings

Design guidelines derived from user feedback

Games effectively increased physical activity during breaks

Guidelines vary with workplace culture

Abstract

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.