Environmental Modification

Another direct approach is environmental modification. This involves modifying users’ environments in such a way that physical activity becomes a required as- pect of some everyday sedentary task (as opposed to making it optional or simply encouraging it).

For example, Nawyn, Intille, and Larson (2006) re-implemented the television with a view to making TV watching a more active experience. During ad-breaks on-screen prompts would appear, prompting viewers to get up and perform short physical activity challenges. The remote control was also re-designed with a view to reduce channel surfing, and viewers were asked to pre-commit to a limit on minutes of television each night, reducing the potential negative impact of the activity.

Chaudhari and Clark took a more direct approach with their “Telecycle” interface, linking a stationary bike directly to a TV and making the viewer cycle in order to keep watching. If the user cycled too slowly the image on the screen became fuzzy. Faster cycling resulted in a sharper picture (Fogg, 2003).

2.3. DIRECT APPROACHES 41

Miller, Rich, and Davis (2009) attached a series of LED “fireflies” to walls in a building, creating a path between lift doors on two different levels via a stairway. When a user pressed the lift call button the fireflies would light a sequence toward the stairs, drawing the user’s attention to the idea of stair use. The user could chase the fireflies down the stairs and if they reached the other level within a certain period of time the lights would flash in a “reward” pattern. The intention of Miller et al. was to introduce a level of fun into using the stairs and to provide people with a reason to use them over the lift. Stairwells can be sterile and boring places but by making them as interesting or more interesting than lifts we may encourage more people to use them. The health benefits in this case become more of a side effect of engaging in an enjoyable activity.

Rogers et al. (2010) aimed more toward gentle social persuasion using a series of public ambient displays. They experimented with embedding LEDs into the floor of a building. When users walked toward the lift, the LEDs would light a path along the floor toward the stairs (“follow the lights”) (Figure 2.19). They metered the number of people using the stairs and the lift and visualised this data using an ambient display of coloured spheres in the lobby that would rise and fall depending on which mode of transport was more prevalent (“clouds”). A series of large wall- mounted screens displayed pie charts graphing historical lift usage (“the history”). Their “follow the lights” display exerts a sort of social pressure, making the subtle statement “you really should be using the stairs” when they appear. Similarly their “Clouds” sphere display and “History” pie charts work to create a new social norm. Any trend towards using the stairs is reflected visibly in a way that makes others feel they should consider using them too.

The idea of making active options fun has also been used to encourage stair use over escalator use. In 2009 a marketing agency working for a major European car company created the “Piano Keys” video. They selected a stairway next to an escalator in a Swedish subway and augmented the stairs with electronic pads to create the appearance of keys on a piano (Figure 2.20). When commuters walked

Figure 2.19: Twinkly Lights (Rogers et al., 2010)

up and down the stairs they lit up and played musical notes. The creators of the video claimed a 66% increase in stair usage vs. escalator usage after the keys were installed (Volkswagen, 2009).

A further example of environmental modification is the use of computers to persuade people to use more active forms of transport (walking or cycling) over sedentary ones. Singh and Mathew (2007) augmented bus stop timetables on a university campus with an interactive map. The map showed walking times and distances between different points on campus and the number of calories that could be burned walking between them. It contrasted walking times with how long it would take to travel by bus (calculated dynamically with buses’ current GPS locations). The hope was that students may decide to walk if they understood how the time commitment would compare to a bus trip and if the health benefits of the walk were made clear. Lim et al. (2011) had the unique idea of modifying footwear to motivate the user to be more physically active. Their “Pediluma” device strapped to the top of a user’s shoe and illuminated when the user walked or ran (Figure 2.21). The device would stay lit for a period of time after the user stopped exercising before fading to

2.3. DIRECT APPROACHES 43

Figure 2.20: Piano Stairs (Volkswagen, 2009)

off. Their intentions were two-fold: that the user would be motivated to be more physically active in order to see their shoe light up, and that the conspicuous light would prompt discussions with others around exercise.

This approach of integrating an ambient display into a piece of wearable technology was previously explored by Williams, Farnham, and Counts (2006), albeit not in a physical activity context. They designed a bracelet—“Damage”—that allowed the wearer to send messages to, and receive messages from, others in a group of friends. To send a message the user would close a snap on their bracelet, causing a particular coloured LED to illuminate on group members’ bracelets. Each bracelet had a group LED that became incrementally brighter as messages were sent amongst the group. Their work was itself based on that of Kikin-Gil (2005), who developed a charm bracelet—“BuddyBeads”—consisting of different touch-sensitive beads which, when pressed, would send messages to other users’ bracelets. Their intention was to allow a group of teenage girls to communicate their emotional states to one another at a distance, to support socialisation and identity.

Figure 2.21: Pediluma (Lim et al., 2011)

intended to be viewed by other people as well as the wearer. The conspicuous nature of the display is intended to draw attention and comments from others. This is in contrast to other approaches where it is assumed that the user will want to keep the information displayed private. Damage (Williams et al., 2006), for example, was designed to be intentionally unreadable to observers who did not understand the personal and social meanings of the colour codes used. The same was the case for BuddyBeads (Kikin-Gil, 2005)—wearers devised a “secret private code” ahead of time to allow them to communicate their emotional states in such a way that the messages couldn’t be understood by others.