Design requirements for technologies that encourage physical activity

TLDR

Overweight and obesity affect more than one billion adults worldwide, causing serious health problems, and physical activity is essential for weight management and health, yet many struggle to increase activity; studies show that increasing daily steps and social support can yield health benefits. The study aims to describe Houston, a mobile phone application that encourages activity by sharing step counts with friends. Houston is a prototype mobile phone app that facilitates step‑count sharing among users to motivate physical activity. Four design requirements for activity‑encouraging technologies were derived from a three‑week in‑situ pilot study with women seeking to increase physical activity.

Abstract

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.