Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
This research was motivated by a desire to help office workers change their sedentary behavior because a prolonged sedentary posture increases the risks of developing musculoskeletal injuries and chronic diseases, thus threatening their physical and psychological well-being. Regular breaks involving low-effort physical activities are effective in reducing the adverse impacts of inactive behaviors. In this article, we present the design of a posture-based interactive system called HealthSit, which was developed to promote a short lower-back stretching exercise during work breaks. Through a within-subject study involving 30 office workers, the effectiveness of HealthSit in facilitating the stretching exercise was examined by making comparisons between an interaction-aided, a guided, and a self-directed exercise mode. We also used HealthSit as a research probe to investigate the interactivity of the system in enhancing user experience and the psychological benefits of the fitness breaks. Compared with the other two modes, the interaction-aided exercise mode significantly improved the quality of the stretching exercise and enhanced motivation and emotional state. These results confirm the effectiveness of HealthSit in supporting fitness breaks as a new workplace technology. Based on our study, a set of design implications have been derived for technology-assisted fitness work breaks.
Cédric Duchene, Nicolas Henchoz, Emily Clare Groves, Romain Simon Collaud, Andreas Sonderegger, Yoann Pierre Douillet
Danick Briand, Silvia Demuru, Jaemin Kim, Brince Paul Kunnel, Vincent Gremeaux, Shu Wang