Game design principles in everyday fitness applications

ABSTRACT

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.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.0 General

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
design principles, everyday fitness games, kukini