Publication
A Study on Real-Time Visualizations During Sports Activities on Smartwatches
Alexander Schiewe; Andrey Krekhov; Frederic Kerber; Florian Daiber; Jens Krüger
In: 19th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia. International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM-2020), New York, NY, USA, MUM 2020, ISBN 9781450388702, Association for Computing Machinery, 2020.
Abstract
Nowadays, many wearable devices such as smartwatches exist that can be used to track and analyze sports activities. Generally, these devices are equipped with high-resolution screens, but most applications provide only textual status information as real-time visual feedback during the respective activities. This limited amount of information is particularly the case for running, which is among the most frequently tracked sports activities with wearable devices. So far, only a few products and prototypes provide assistance and feedback related to running technique and efficiency, but also predominantly by means of textual data representations. This work investigates visualization approaches on the smartwatch for real-time feedback. We conducted two user studies in order to evaluate the feasibility and user acceptance of visualizations for running-technique training that assists the runner in implementing a forefoot running style. Despite frequent glances at the smartwatch, the results confirm that a runner’s performance is not impaired in comparison to traditional training. Further, the results indicate that runners benefit from the visualizations in various ways: They feel more motivated and supported, improve their self-assessment, and have the certainty that they perform the new technique correctly. Most participants also took a very positive view on the intuitiveness of the visualizations.