UbiFit

Investigating how ubiquitous computing can help encourage people to sustain an increased level of physical activity

(In collaboration with Intel Research Seattle)

Overweight and obesity, which are linked to several serious health problems, have become a global epidemic, affecting over one billion adults worldwide. While the medical community agrees that physical activity and fitness are essential to addressing this epidemic, many adults have difficulty increasing and then maintaining physical activity in their everyday lives. In the UbiFit project, we are investigating how ubiquitous computing can help encourage people to sustain an increased level of physical activity.

In our first UbiFit investigation, we explored if technology could encourage physical activity by providing personal awareness of activity level and mediating physical activity-related social interaction among friends. We developed a prototype mobile phone application where a small group of friends could share their current step count and performance toward a daily step count goal amongst each other. The prototype was composed of two pieces of commodity hardware—a pedometer and mobile phone—and our custom software that ran on the phone. The prototype was evaluated in a three-week long in situ pilot study with three groups of women who wanted to increase their levels of physical activity.

Collaborators:
Mike Chen
Sunny Consolvo
Jon E. Froehlich
Beverly Harrison
Anthony LaMarca
James A. Landay
Louis LeGrand
Ryan Libby
David W. McDonald
Ian Smith
Tammy Toscos

Publications:

• Sunny Consolvo, David W. McDonald, Tammy Toscos, Mike Chen, Jon E. Froehlich, Beverly Harrison, Pedrag Klasnja, Anthony LaMarca, Louis LeGrand, Ryan Libby, Ian Smith and James A. Landay.
  Activity Sensing in the Wild: A Field Trial of UbiFit Garden.
  CHI 2008.