Exergames, i.e. games that combine play with physical activity, rarely recognize the whole family... more Exergames, i.e. games that combine play with physical activity, rarely recognize the whole family as a user group in its own right. We organized a design workshop to explore new direction for those types of exergames. We argue that recognizing the whole family as a target group implicitly improves game enjoyment due to its friendly social context, provides an excellent opportunity to improve social relatedness experiences through family bonding and intergenerational interactions, and contributes to individuals' wellbeing in terms of both physical thriving and social relatedness. Three design concepts were proposed using cooperative and/or competitive game modes. We propose considering family members with limited gaming experience as audience players and recognising their autonomy in the exergame design. We believe that through an enhanced understanding of family exergames, designers and developers can build new experiences that accommodate various capabilities and social dynamics of the family.
This paper describes a Virtual Reality (VR) exergame platform used to investigate player motivati... more This paper describes a Virtual Reality (VR) exergame platform used to investigate player motivation and experience of physical activity through variations of game designs. The VR-Rides platform combines a desk cycle, real-world imagery, an HTC VIVE head-mounted device (HMD) with controllers and a Microsoft wrist band, such that the player can navigate locations in a safe immersive virtual environment. Panorama images come from Google Street View. Two games were developed to explore motivation, enjoyment and their link to player's perceived experiences in immersive VR exergaming setup. The platform acts as a test-bed to iteratively design and evaluate theory driven immersive VR game designs to support activities pertaining to player's health and wellbeing goals.
Objectives To investigate the feasibility of the be.well app and its personalization approach whi... more Objectives To investigate the feasibility of the be.well app and its personalization approach which regularly considers users’ preferences, amongst university students. Methods We conducted a mixed-methods, pre-post experiment, where participants used the app for 2 months. Eligibility criteria included: age 18–34 years; owning an iPhone with Internet access; and fluency in English. Usability was assessed by a validated questionnaire; engagement metrics were reported. Changes in physical activity were assessed by comparing the difference in daily step count between baseline and 2 months. Interviews were conducted to assess acceptability; thematic analysis was conducted. Results Twenty-three participants were enrolled in the study (mean age = 21.9 years, 71.4% women). The mean usability score was 5.6 ± 0.8 out of 7. The median daily engagement time was 2 minutes. Eighteen out of 23 participants used the app in the last month of the study. Qualitative data revealed that people liked th...
Virtual reality (VR) can be combined with exergames technology to provide highly immersive physic... more Virtual reality (VR) can be combined with exergames technology to provide highly immersive physical activity experiences. The design of VR exergames, so they are enjoyable and engaging, for different age groups, is currently under-investigated. In this paper, we study enjoyment of physical activity on VR-Rides, a virtual exergaming platform with a recumbent trike controller. In our experiment, we assigned participants to one of the two conditions; a static user interface (UI) or an Open World VR environment which allowed participants to explore a virtual location using Google's Street View 360 panorama images. In both conditions, participants could track their activity data in real-time. The results suggest higher enjoyment and more activity time in an Open World condition, where participants are encouraged to explore a virtual location. Almost half of participants in the UI condition showed disinterest after a short interaction time, due to the static environment.
Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has gained considerable attention recently with increasing afford... more Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has gained considerable attention recently with increasing affordability and accessibility of the hardware. iVR applications for older adults present tremendous potential for diverse interventions and innovations. The iVR literature, however, provides a limited understanding of guiding design considerations and evaluations pertaining to user experience (UX). To address this gap, we present a state-of-the-art scoping review of literature on iVR applications developed for older adults over 65 years. We performed a search in ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and PubMed (1 January 2010–15 December 2019) and found 36 out of 3874 papers met the inclusion criteria. We identified 10 distinct sets of design considerations that guided target users and physical configuration, hardware use, and software design. Most studies carried episodic UX where only 2 captured anticipated UX and 7 measured longitudinal experiences. We discuss the interplay between ou...
Adjunct Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers
Transaction management is one of the most crucial requirements for enterprise application develop... more Transaction management is one of the most crucial requirements for enterprise application development which often require concurrent access to distributed data shared amongst multiple application / nodes. Transactions guarantee the consistency of data records when multiple users or processes perform concurrent operations. Existing Fault Tolerance Infrastructure for Mobile Agents (FTIMA) provides a fault tolerant behavior in distributed transactions and uses multi-agent system for distributed transaction and processing. In the existing FTIMA architecture, data flows through the network and contains personal, private or confidential information. In banking transactions a minor change in the transaction can cause a great loss to the user. In this paper we have modified FTIMA architecture to ensure that the user request reaches the destination server securely and without any change. We have used triple DES for encryption/ decryption and MD5 algorithm for validity of message.
Exergames, i.e. games that combine play with physical activity, rarely recognize the whole family... more Exergames, i.e. games that combine play with physical activity, rarely recognize the whole family as a user group in its own right. We organized a design workshop to explore new direction for those types of exergames. We argue that recognizing the whole family as a target group implicitly improves game enjoyment due to its friendly social context, provides an excellent opportunity to improve social relatedness experiences through family bonding and intergenerational interactions, and contributes to individuals' wellbeing in terms of both physical thriving and social relatedness. Three design concepts were proposed using cooperative and/or competitive game modes. We propose considering family members with limited gaming experience as audience players and recognising their autonomy in the exergame design. We believe that through an enhanced understanding of family exergames, designers and developers can build new experiences that accommodate various capabilities and social dynamics of the family.
This paper describes a Virtual Reality (VR) exergame platform used to investigate player motivati... more This paper describes a Virtual Reality (VR) exergame platform used to investigate player motivation and experience of physical activity through variations of game designs. The VR-Rides platform combines a desk cycle, real-world imagery, an HTC VIVE head-mounted device (HMD) with controllers and a Microsoft wrist band, such that the player can navigate locations in a safe immersive virtual environment. Panorama images come from Google Street View. Two games were developed to explore motivation, enjoyment and their link to player's perceived experiences in immersive VR exergaming setup. The platform acts as a test-bed to iteratively design and evaluate theory driven immersive VR game designs to support activities pertaining to player's health and wellbeing goals.
Objectives To investigate the feasibility of the be.well app and its personalization approach whi... more Objectives To investigate the feasibility of the be.well app and its personalization approach which regularly considers users’ preferences, amongst university students. Methods We conducted a mixed-methods, pre-post experiment, where participants used the app for 2 months. Eligibility criteria included: age 18–34 years; owning an iPhone with Internet access; and fluency in English. Usability was assessed by a validated questionnaire; engagement metrics were reported. Changes in physical activity were assessed by comparing the difference in daily step count between baseline and 2 months. Interviews were conducted to assess acceptability; thematic analysis was conducted. Results Twenty-three participants were enrolled in the study (mean age = 21.9 years, 71.4% women). The mean usability score was 5.6 ± 0.8 out of 7. The median daily engagement time was 2 minutes. Eighteen out of 23 participants used the app in the last month of the study. Qualitative data revealed that people liked th...
Virtual reality (VR) can be combined with exergames technology to provide highly immersive physic... more Virtual reality (VR) can be combined with exergames technology to provide highly immersive physical activity experiences. The design of VR exergames, so they are enjoyable and engaging, for different age groups, is currently under-investigated. In this paper, we study enjoyment of physical activity on VR-Rides, a virtual exergaming platform with a recumbent trike controller. In our experiment, we assigned participants to one of the two conditions; a static user interface (UI) or an Open World VR environment which allowed participants to explore a virtual location using Google's Street View 360 panorama images. In both conditions, participants could track their activity data in real-time. The results suggest higher enjoyment and more activity time in an Open World condition, where participants are encouraged to explore a virtual location. Almost half of participants in the UI condition showed disinterest after a short interaction time, due to the static environment.
Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has gained considerable attention recently with increasing afford... more Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has gained considerable attention recently with increasing affordability and accessibility of the hardware. iVR applications for older adults present tremendous potential for diverse interventions and innovations. The iVR literature, however, provides a limited understanding of guiding design considerations and evaluations pertaining to user experience (UX). To address this gap, we present a state-of-the-art scoping review of literature on iVR applications developed for older adults over 65 years. We performed a search in ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and PubMed (1 January 2010–15 December 2019) and found 36 out of 3874 papers met the inclusion criteria. We identified 10 distinct sets of design considerations that guided target users and physical configuration, hardware use, and software design. Most studies carried episodic UX where only 2 captured anticipated UX and 7 measured longitudinal experiences. We discuss the interplay between ou...
Adjunct Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers
Transaction management is one of the most crucial requirements for enterprise application develop... more Transaction management is one of the most crucial requirements for enterprise application development which often require concurrent access to distributed data shared amongst multiple application / nodes. Transactions guarantee the consistency of data records when multiple users or processes perform concurrent operations. Existing Fault Tolerance Infrastructure for Mobile Agents (FTIMA) provides a fault tolerant behavior in distributed transactions and uses multi-agent system for distributed transaction and processing. In the existing FTIMA architecture, data flows through the network and contains personal, private or confidential information. In banking transactions a minor change in the transaction can cause a great loss to the user. In this paper we have modified FTIMA architecture to ensure that the user request reaches the destination server securely and without any change. We have used triple DES for encryption/ decryption and MD5 algorithm for validity of message.
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