During Tuesday the 20th and Friday the 23rd of April, the class presented their dissertation proposal to their peers and to Gabriela, our lecturer in Principals of Interactive Media. It was a tiring but worthwhile exercise as it made me more aware of what everyone was doing in their projects and this then helped everyone generate of new ideas and inspirations for their projects. For me, the whole experience was great as it made me really solidify my idea and think about the feasibility and configuration of the project rather than just the idea. Although I was a bit disheartened after the presentation because I misinterpreted the issues within the project, it did open my eyes to other possibilities and opportunities of the project. While researching for the presentation I became too focused on obesity and motivations of users to exercise, disregarding the importance social communities, how they operate and what sustains them.
The initial idea for the project came from a personal experience over the christmas period. My friend, who at the time was getting married (she tied the knot last month) was looking to loose a few kg before her big day but didn’t know how to go about it in a safe and healthy way. This resonated with me as many times in the past I have dieted, trying to get into “that” dress for a big event, without much luck. I also tried exercising and fitness classes including aerobics, but would always loose interest after a few months.
During my initial concept generation stage, I envisioned this product to be worn in the wrist of a person, monitoring their fitness level each day by measuring heart rate, steps taken and sleeping patterns. Results from these would calculate the energy expenditure of the person and what needs to be done to reach your target weight.
After much thought and consideration I decided that I would modify my initial idea because I don’t have the necessary skills for this project, them being nutrition and health care. Another reason was because a very similar product exists already in the market, the Fitbit Tracker (see video 1). I also wanted to create a product that generated more meaning for the individual rather that just being an generic exercise product. I wanted to develop something that would change behaviour, from exercise being viewed as a chore to being something that is fun and emotionally rewarding.
Video 1: Demonstration of Fitbit Tracker
So from this I started looking at how to promote and sustain interest in exercise. Studies, like figure 1 (source) ,
found that women participate in a significantly lower amount of exercise than men do. This indicates more extreme barriers for exercising exist for women than do for men. My target audience will range from early twenties upward and although men can join the site, it will be specifically targeted at women, because of their tendency to place more emphasis upon social motives. I decided to investigate in more detail on what motivates women to strive to exercise, as understanding the motives of exercise will lead to developing a system that meets the real needs and wants of the user.So why are current methods not working?
In many cases exercise is promoted as a tool that aids in weight loss and enhances appearance. Future health benefits and final results of exercise are also highlighted in advertising campaigns for weight loss mechanisms. Therefore the reason people start exercising(if they don’t participate in sport) is to loose weight and their motivation is to get thinner so as to conform to social standard. The goal to loose weight is not promoting self-worth because if this goal is not achieved this may result in psychological costs to the individual including decreased motivation to exercise. Therefore exercising for an extrinsic reason such as weight loss is not optimal for sustaining physical activity.
During a talk by Dr. Dean Ornish, entitled “The power of sustainable changes” (see Video 2), he addressed the issue of change that needs to come in health care from ‘you must do’ and ‘you should’ attitude to a more holistic approach, creating amazing experiences. He spoke about the need to bring people together for the promotion of healing which can be facilitated through technology and community.
Video 2: Dr. Dean Ornish on "The power of sustainable changes"
There are many websites tailored to weight management, healthy eating and online community based support. Some of the most popular ones include Traineo and SparkPeople. These websites offer tailor made plans for exercise, eating and allow us to determine our goals on weight loss. They promote healthy living by giving tips and setting mini goals. But what they were lacking is the community aspect. Although most of the weight loss websites featured a section on communities there was many problems that I experienced including
- Difficulty to navigate around them.
- They often only had blog like posting which made it almost impossible to talk to others and discuss problems.
- There was many posts within groups, asking about meet-ups and exercising together, but the post back were usually rejection because of distance reasons.
What difference I want to make?
What I found was lacking in these websites was a level of interaction and support at a community level. During my research I found time and time again a positive correlation between physical activity participation and social support
“social support is one of the most consistent correlates of physical activity among women” (Eyler et al., 2002)
This highlights the importance of connection and social interaction in maintaining physical activity.
I want to focus the attention away from weight loss benefits of exercise as they do not promote long term physical activity and ground it in a more holistic view of exercise, one which promotes well being and stress reduction which are the greatest goals in maintaining physical activity participation. I want this system to address people who have negative feeling about exercise; who have joined the gym but never went or tried dieting but lost interest when they didn’t see results; to help them find enjoyable experiences. It will address the main problem with the current system, find a way of getting people hooked on the activity so as to sustain exercise
What I plan to do
I found that the most useful information came from blogs and other social networking sites as they gave up to the minute information about the subject and gave a more personal approach to the subject matter, which is imperative to know for this subject.
Understand the motives of people using social networking sites, what they require from them to sustain their interest? What builds a social networking site? Can online meeting on facilitate face-to-face interactions and how is this done?
What will sustain people coming back to the site when they have made friends with and are part of an exercise plan with members of the community?
Its looking like its going to be a busy few months ahead!
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