research-article

Finding the Sweet Spot(s): Understanding Context to Support Physical Activity Plans

Authors:

Gaurav Paruthi,

Natalie Colabianchi,

Predrag Klasnja,

Mark W. NewmanAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, Volume 2, Issue 1

Article No.: 29, Pages 1 - 17

https://doi.org/10.1145/3191761

Published: 26 March 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Creating actionable plans has been shown to be helpful in promoting physical activity. However, little rèsearch has been done on how best to support the creation and execution of plans. In this paper, we interviewed 16 participants to study the role that context plays in the formulation and execution of plans for physical activity. Our findings highlight nuanced ways that contextual factors interact with each other and with individual differences to impact planning. We propose the notion of sweet spots to encapsulate how particular contextual factors converge to create optimal states for performing physical activities. The concept of sweet spots helped us to better understand the creation and execution of plans made by our participants. We present design guidelines to show how sweet spots can help support physical activity planning and guide the design of context-based tools for planning support.

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Index Terms

Finding the Sweet Spot(s): Understanding Context to Support Physical Activity Plans
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Ubiquitous and mobile computing
    1. Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies Volume 2, Issue 1

March 2018

1370 pages

EISSN:2474-9567

DOI:10.1145/3200905

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Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 26 March 2018

Accepted: 01 January 2018

Revised: 01 November 2017

Received: 01 May 2017

Published in IMWUT Volume 2, Issue 1

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Yan XBaroudi LBei RBoudalia LCain SBarton KShorter KNewman M(2024)Proposing a Context-informed Layer-based Framework: Incorporating Context into Designing mHealth Technology for Fatigue ManagementDesigning Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661615(571-583)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661615
Ley-Flores JVidal LSegura ESingh ABevilacqua FCuadrado FDurán JValdiviezo-Hernández OSánchez-Martin MTajadura-Jiménez A(2024)Co-Designing Sensory Feedback for Wearables to Support Physical Activity through Body SensationsProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36434998:1(1-31)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2024
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