Usability and motivational effects of a gamified exercise and fitness system based on wearable devices

Abstract

Gamification of exercise has become a popular topic due to its motivational and engagement effects, which intends to result in increased exercise, activity, health, and fitness for everyday users. At the same time, wearable technologies have become a fast growing industry, providing consumers the ability to conveniently track their state of health and fitness efforts. Consequently, we propose that off-the-shelf commercial wearable technologies have great potential to be applied in gamification of fitness and exercise. In this paper, we utilize this concept through the design and implementation of a smartphone game application which uses wearable devices as input systems. The game supports two different wearable devices which are commercially available to end-users, and three types of activities were included in the gamified experience. These activities are performed as inputs to our mobile game. User tests evaluate the effectiveness of the combined use of games and wearable devices in promoting exercise. The usability of our proposed approach and effects of different factors within the system are also evaluated.