Designing Interactive Technology to Motivate Overweight People to Lose Weight by Doing Physical Activity
Itangishaka, Alain-Victor (2017)
Itangishaka, Alain-Victor
2017
Master's Degree Programme in Information Technology
Tieto- ja sähkötekniikan tiedekunta - Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2017-01-11
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201612154868
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201612154868
Tiivistelmä
Nowadays, gaining inappropriate weight as being overweight has become a global issue. This problem was once only considered as a problem of rich people or for people from high-income countries, however, it is now affecting even low and middle-income countries particularly in the urban area. It is an issue that attracts the attention of many scientists and researchers. With the rapid advancement of technology, it is now widely used to contribute to finding solution to this problem. This thesis has as the main purpose to find the motivational needs of overweight people for doing physical activity and provide a prototype application with features to address those needs.
Different methods were used from research to the design of the prototype. The literature review on motivational technology that supports people for physical activity was used. It was then followed by observation and face to face interview with potential users of the prototype. All the data collected were analyzed to find out what can motivate the overweight people to do physical activity. The motivational aspects found from observation and interview revealed some similarities with motivational aspects in the review of existing technology used to support physical activities. According to the results found in the literature review of existing technologies and the results from the user study, the overweight people are highly motivated by the social aspects. The technological solution presented as a contribution in this thesis strongly focused on sociability between people as a way of supporting the overweight to do physical activities.
The User Centered Design (UCD) was used from the early phase as the design method. This method was chosen due to its flexibility. It puts the users at the center of the whole work from collecting data to the evaluation of the design. The design of the prototype started by creating various scenarios and storyboard. A mock-up prototype application was designed with different social motivational features to demonstrate the concept. The prototype was tested with the potential users in order to get feedbacks and suggestion on how it can be improved.
Different methods were used from research to the design of the prototype. The literature review on motivational technology that supports people for physical activity was used. It was then followed by observation and face to face interview with potential users of the prototype. All the data collected were analyzed to find out what can motivate the overweight people to do physical activity. The motivational aspects found from observation and interview revealed some similarities with motivational aspects in the review of existing technology used to support physical activities. According to the results found in the literature review of existing technologies and the results from the user study, the overweight people are highly motivated by the social aspects. The technological solution presented as a contribution in this thesis strongly focused on sociability between people as a way of supporting the overweight to do physical activities.
The User Centered Design (UCD) was used from the early phase as the design method. This method was chosen due to its flexibility. It puts the users at the center of the whole work from collecting data to the evaluation of the design. The design of the prototype started by creating various scenarios and storyboard. A mock-up prototype application was designed with different social motivational features to demonstrate the concept. The prototype was tested with the potential users in order to get feedbacks and suggestion on how it can be improved.