Reflections on the Design of Exertion Games.

The design of exertion games (i.e., digital games that require physical effort from players) is a difficult intertwined challenge of combining digital games and physical effort. To aid designers in facing this challenge, we describe our experiences of designing exertion games. We outline personal reflections on our design processes and articulate analyses of players' experiences. These reflections and analyses serve to highlight the unique opportunities of combining digital games and physical effort. The insights we seek aim to enhance the understanding of exertion game design, contributing to the advancement of the field, and ultimately resulting in better games and associated player experiences.

Efficient and Effective Change Principles in Active Videogames.

Active videogames have the potential to enhance population levels of physical activity but have not been successful in achieving this aim to date. This article considers a range of principles that may be important to the design of effective and efficient active videogames from diverse discipline areas, including behavioral sciences (health behavior change, motor learning, and serious games), business production (marketing and sales), and technology engineering and design (human-computer interaction/ergonomics and flow). Both direct and indirect pathways to impact on population levels of habitual physical activity are proposed, along with the concept of a game use lifecycle. Examples of current active and sedentary electronic games are used to understand how such principles may be applied. Furthermore, limitations of the current usage of theoretical principles are discussed. A suggested list of principles for best practice in active videogame design is proposed along with suggested research ideas to inform practice to enhance physical activity.

Preliminary results from a study of the impact of digital activity trackers on health risk status.

Digital activity trackers are becoming increasingly more widespread and affordable, providing new opportunities to support participatory e-health programs in which participants take an active role. However, there is limited knowledge of how to deploy these activity trackers within these programs. In response, we conducted a 7-month study with 212 employees using a wireless activity tracker to log step count. Our results suggest that these devices can support improving physical activity levels and consequently reduce diabetes risk factors. Furthermore, the intervention seems more effective for people with higher risk factors. With our work we aim to contribute to a better understanding of the issues and challenges involved in the design of participatory e-health programs that include activity trackers.