Research Paper: "Tracking Outdoor Sports - User Experience Perspective"
(Nina)
Back to Production of Social Media
Reasons for chosing this research paper:[muokkaa]
- short description of different outdoor tracking applications
- mentioning of the different features the applications offer
- no technical details regarding the applications
- using these features as basis or adapting these features to our "cultural heritage tracker"
I summarized the different features mentioned in the paper. This should serve as a basis for our group project regarding the features and services we want to include into our "cultural heritage tracker".
Have a look at my presentation.
Summary of the paper "Tracking Outdoor Sports - User Experience Perspective" by the Nokia research center of Helsinki.[muokkaa]
This paper examines the user experience evoked by the sports tracking application integrated in a mobile phone and the related web service. First, they summarized some related work and presented a their categorization system of application features. After that they presented their study, where they collected and analyzed user experiences evoked by the mobile sports tracking application "Nokia Sports Tracker".
Nowadays, there are several special services and devices for outdoors sports tracking. Wrist computers together with GPS receivers were used to track down different aspects about the route. One example they mentioned is "Garmin Forerunner". This device tracks speed, distance, heart rate, etc. and works with a web portal where the workouts can be downloaded and viewed with various charts, pictures and maps. Furthermore, they can be shared with other people on the web portal. An additional feature of devices like that is a training diary that offers the users the possibility to save their personal performances. Information like date, duration, activity type and some additional notes will be saved in this diary. Additional features some devices offer is a 3D mobile navigation assistant. This is a location-based service which offers a rendered panorama scene that fits with the real surroundings and information nodes, e.g. names of mountains.
The categorization of the current applications to support physical activity made by the Nokia research center is Logger, virtual personal trainer, gaming and entertainment and community and social sharing. Loggers are able to measure parameters related to the exercise, e.g. they save the data about the pulse. Virtual personal trainer-approach usually includes a logger feature and in addition analyzes functionality. That means, they provide a feedback on the performance of the user. GPS-enabled devices even offer location-aware feedback. They are used for viewing maps and the animated, human-figured 3D fitness trainer. Physical gaming and entertainment approach is a combination of an exercise bicycle, a computer and a large screen. The idea is to explore new surroundings or playing fitness games while exercising. Social sharing is a function where the users can share the excercise related data on a web page and can be seen as the great motivator.
In their study they analyzed the subject user experiences expressed by 28 voluntary participants who use the "Nokia Sports Tracker". They utilized two methods: semi-structures interviews and text-message questions. The results show that the mobile application was mostly used for personal purpose and partly shared it on the web page. If they shared their information, the most common reason was that they found it interesting to see routes of other people in the areas they were doing sport themselves, or in new areas they were planning to visit.