Toward Exploratory Design with Stakeholders for Understanding Exergame Design

Prior work has explored improving the efficacy of exergames through participatory design with children. Children are not necessarily able to make informed decisions about their fitness, so their perspectives form only half the picture. Adults who are invested in the problem of children's fitness (e.g., PE teachers) are a valuable missing perspective. As a first step to understanding what we can learn from these stakeholders to aid the design of exergames, we conducted one in-depth interview with a PE teacher and several focus groups with children. Our findings showed that, although both children and the PE teacher like similar game elements, children viewed the elements through the lens of fun while the PE teacher viewed the elements through the lens of effectiveness. Our preliminary findings establish the importance of including such stakeholders in the formative design of exergames.