FloorPlay: Design and evaluation of a system to motivate physical activity in office workers Daniel Bryan Peter Harrison "Project report submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics) in the Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, 2012." NOTE BY THE UNIVERSITY This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility can be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the material therein. Acknowledgements This was a very ambitious MSc project, and as such there are a lot of people I’d like to thank. I’d first like to thank Jon Bird and Paul Marshall, for all of their support and assistance in producing and installing the system, and ultimately getting this report written. They offered great help throughout the project; the project wouldn’t have came together without them. I’d also like to thank all of the other academic and support staff that have taught and helped me over the past twelve months on the Masters’ degree. The Technical Support Group staff, especially Dave Twinsleton, were also a great help with installing various parts of the system, including the wiring for the interactive surface and the wireless network in the stairwell. My friend, Greg Booth, also very kindly took a long day away from home to come to UCL and help me install parts of the system. Fran Allfrey and James Owers kindly allowed me to stay at their home when it was either too late or when I was too exhausted to take the train home. Other students on the MSc, especially Bella Slade and Katrine Sannaes were fantastic for helping me keep calm and on-track when things weren’t going so well. My mum and nan lovingly put up with me when I was wasn’t a great person to be with whilst working long hours over the summer, and were still willing to proof-read my work. Finally I would like to thank all of my participants, who came into UCL to evaluate and interact with parts of the system without any reward. - 2 - Abstract Office-based workers spend most of their working day sitting down and this sedentary behaviour can impact adversely on their health. By contrast, physical activity can improve health, as well as having short-term cognitive benefits, such as better focus and concentration. This thesis is about the design, prototyping and evaluation of three of the main components of FloorPlay, a novel interactive system that aims to encourage university staff and students to increase their physical activity at work. FloorPlay offers playful whole-body interaction on a large-scale interactive floor surface as a reward for climbing the stairs. Using a user-centred design process, this thesis has developed and evaluated solutions to three major challenges: measuring stair climbing activity; tracking and recording participants’ stair usage; and providing engaging playful interaction that motivates people to climb the stairs. We designed and evaluated prototypes to: first, measure stairwell activity; and second, enable users to quickly scan their university ID card whilst climbing the stairs. We also significantly extended an existing floor display from 16 to 216 LED units and integrated commercial IR sensors with the system to track movement across the floor. Eight activity counters were installed on the landings between the floors of the Malet Place Engineering Building and they reliably collected data for over a month. The design was robust, cost effective and its accuracy was confirmed by an observation study. After several design iterations, the ID card scanners were found to be effective - 3 - following a short initial learning stage. Using Wizard of Oz testing we identified properties that made games engaging on the large interactive floor. - 4 - Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................. 12 2.1 Behaviour change and physical activity ..................................................................... 12 2.2 Public Displays ............................................................................................................. 15 2.3 Floor Displays ............................................................................................................... 16 2.4 Public Interactions ....................................................................................................... 17 2.5 Interactive system design and installation ................................................................. 18 2.6 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 3: System Overview .................................................................................... 21 3.1 FloorPlay System Schematic ....................................................................................... 21 3.2 Interactive Surface ....................................................................................................... 24 3.3 Stairwell Activity .......................................................................................................... 29 3.4 Situation ........................................................................................................................ 31 3.5 Constraints ................................................................................................................... 32 3.6 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 4: Counting Stairwell Activity .................................................................. 34 4.1 Options .......................................................................................................................... 34 4.2 Sensor overview ............................................................................................................ 36 4.3 Limitations of the chosen technology ......................................................................... 38 4.4 Design, and initial prototypes ..................................................................................... 41 - 5 - 4.5 Building, installing and testing ................................................................................... 43 4.6 User Feedback .............................................................................................................. 47 4.7 Data ............................................................................................................................... 49 4.8 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 5: Counting participant stair usage .......................................................... 52 5.1 Positioning .................................................................................................................... 53 5.2 Initial testing ................................................................................................................. 54 5.3 Physical Prototyping .................................................................................................... 56 5.4 User testing ................................................................................................................... 59 5.5 Feedback ....................................................................................................................... 61 5.6 Iteration ........................................................................................................................ 65 5.7 In The Wild Evaluation ............................................................................................... 68 5.8 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 6: Thermitrack Cameras ........................................................................... 74 6.1 Camera Overview ........................................................................................................ 74 6.1 Hardware and Software Challenges .......................................................................... 74 6.2 Evaluation ..................................................................................................................... 76 6.3 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter 7: Interactive Surface ................................................................................. 78 7.1 Initial Interviews .......................................................................................................... 78 7.2 Installation .................................................................................................................... 79 7.3 Notable Issues ............................................................................................................... 80 - 6 - 7.4 Wizard of Oz Evaluation ............................................................................................. 82 7.5 Feedback ....................................................................................................................... 85 7.6 Future Work ................................................................................................................