Project Details
Health and Fitness Gaming
In most industrialized countries, a large percentage of adults is obese or overweight because they are physically inactive. This leads to problems, such as decreasing the life quality of individuals and increasing health care costs, especially in North America. The millennial technology-centered lifestyle has brought about unhealthy habits, such as eating more processed food and less physical activity at home. Video games have risen in popularity over the past decades and some have blamed increased game playing habits for an unhealthy lifestyle change. This project investigates whether it is possible to motivate people for a healthy lifestyle and for maintaining increased physical activity by using video games. We are especially interested in exploring game design elements and psychological reward balancing that leads to increased exercise motivation and maintaining healthy eating habits. We are using physiological measures and behaviour tracking to analyse and study habit formation in physically interactive gaming environments.
People
Lead
Participants
Dennis KappenPh.D. Student, Game Design and User Interaction for Older Adults 
Rina WehbePh.D. Student, EEG Analysis of Gameplay Comprehension
Publications
Year 2016
Dennis L. Kappen,
Lennart E. Nacke, Kathrin M. Gerling, and Lia E. Tsotsos. 2016. Design Strategies for Gamified Physical Activity Applications for Older Adults. In
Proceedings of the 49th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE, 1309-1318.
doi:10.1109/HICSS.2016.166 @inproceedings{Kappen2016,
abstract = {Staying physically active is essential to wellbeing in late life. However, many older adults experience barriers to physical activity. Past research has investigated the development of playful interactive systems to support exercise routines and reduce access barriers. Yet, little research has been done on older adults' needs and preferences regarding technologies that support physical activity. We address this issue through an exploration of older adults' exercise motivations grouped around themes relevant to technology design. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 older adults, and followed up with a focus group study of physical trainers and older adults with an active lifestyle. Based on our results, we discuss their conflicting perspectives and challenges on exercise and technology, which leads us to contribute design strategies to support designers as well as researchers wishing to create meaningful and playful fitness applications for older adults.},
author = {Kappen, Dennis L. and Nacke, Lennart E. and Gerling, Kathrin M. and Tsotsos, Lia E.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-49},
doi = {10.1109/HICSS.2016.166},
file = {:C$\backslash$:/Users/Gustavo/Dropbox/PhD/HCI Games Publications/2016/Design Strategies for Gamified Physical Activity Applications for Older Adults.pdf:pdf},
mendeley-groups = {HCI Games Group Publications},
pages = {1309--1318},
title = {{Design Strategies for Gamified Physical Activity Applications for Older Adults}},
year = {2016}
}Staying physically active is essential to wellbeing in late life. However, many older adults experience barriers to physical activity. Past research has investigated the development of playful interactive systems to support exercise routines and reduce access barriers. Yet, little research has been done on older adults’ needs and preferences regarding technologies that support physical activity. We address this issue through an exploration of older adults’ exercise motivations grouped around themes relevant to technology design. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 older adults, and followed up with a focus group study of physical trainers and older adults with an active lifestyle. Based on our results, we discuss their conflicting perspectives and challenges on exercise and technology, which leads us to contribute design strategies to support designers as well as researchers wishing to create meaningful and playful fitness applications for older adults.
