Paper Reading #9: Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia

Reference

Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller , Interaction Design Group, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Frank Vetere , Interaction Design Group, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Martin R. Gibbs, Interaction Design Group, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Darren Edge, Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing People’s Republic of China

Stefan Agamanolis, Distance Lab Horizon Scotland Forres, Moray UK

Jennifer G. Sheridan, London Knowledge Lab Institute of Education University of London London,UK

Presentation: UIST’10, October 3–6, 2010, New York, New York, USA.

Summary

Hypothesis/ Contents

The paper presents a novel way of social interaction between people in form of jogging where the joggers can be as distant as Australia and Europe. They have designed a tool which consists of headset and heart rate monitor along with a waist pouch that holds mobile phone and a mini computer. They can set a target heart rate which will determine how the joggers are placed to each other in virtual space. The system goes on getting real time data and produces spatial audio that makes people feel how behind, together or ahead they are of their counterpart, depending upon the exertion applied by the user. The paper hypothesizes that their system enhances social interaction and their framework can help thedevelopment of future social systems that aim to utilize thebenefits of exertion and

contribute to knowledge of the underlying elementsinvolved.The knowledge can help create moreengaging systems and experiences that lead to morecaptivated users and hence to sustained and repeatedparticipation.

Methods
User study was done among 17 users(10 male , 7 female) where they were asked to make 14 runs totaling to 85km at an average time of 39 minutes for each. The users were from different continents who ran on different courses as well as from same place who ran on same course on opposite direction. Interviews lasting for about 2 hours were taken after each run. The interview data was analyzed using a grounded codingprocess to identify salient themes. Using an iterativeprocess, the themes were redefined by drawing on the notes taken and hence created affinity diagrams. Participants were included in data pricing analysis to understand their experience.

Results
The study showed that jogging over distance can in fact facilitate social interactions and experience.People were impressed by the feeling it created that they were jogging side by side. The ability to be in communication at all times was beneficial as a security option when people had to jog during the nights. The results about the persons' performance provided information about persons running abilities and how they parred with their counterparts. It helped them to push themselves to their limits and compete.

Discussion
The paper does a good job of presenting a system for social interaction in real time over a long distance. The results were impressive enough to laud their work. The only problems I can see with the system is its limitation in places with low noise around, the inaccessibility of the mobile computers and phones with such capacities to everyone as well as an some kind of extra instrument to carry over the waist. If an application can be developed in smartphones to do calculations then probably the system can be more portable. Furthermore the system can have other applications among professional athletes to compete against each other as well as improvise their trainings.