Interactions - March/April 2015

MARCH–APRIL 2015 INTERAC TIONS 31 INTERAC TIONS. ACM.ORG >>>> smart watches, smart glasses, sensing textiles, and big data.

Following the overall trend of research in exercise, motivation, and well-being, we now start to see work that deals with actual sports and sports performance. To promote HCI research in sports, we organized a workshop and a SIG at CHI 2014 in Toronto. During a busy and inspiring day, 22 people from 10 countries and

13 universities and companies got together to discuss the direction of sports HCI.

Let us briefly present some themes that came up during our discussion that we believe could benefit from increased attention from the HCI community.

Feedback, in real time—for example, from coaches or mirrors— is central for athletes striving to understand their technique in various sports. A challenge is to create feedback that fits into the physical setting and social context of the athletic situation without breaking the flow and experience of the user.

Bodily awareness and control.

Current lightweight interactive technologies show potential for real-time feedback and use in sporting activity. Thereby, athletes can gain an improved sense for how they perform the skills and techniques of their sport.

Sociality is a central theme in sports for athletes and coaches, as well as for audiences. Technology provides a means of enriching the social aspects of sports for all user groups by creating stronger connections between athletes and audiences, balancing skill levels, creating collaborative activities, and capturing and sharing activities.

Skill development. Technology can support the development of skills by providing real-time feedback on performances and collecting data to support post-activity analysis. It can also support the practice of specific skills through challenging and playful activities.

This special section presents four examples from the emerging research area of sports and HCI, illustrating these topics in more depth.

Stina Nylander is a senior researcher at the Mobile Life Centre and SICS Swedish IC T. Her research focuses on everyday use and appropriation of mobile technology in various domains, lately with an emphasis on sports and technical maintenance. → stny@sics.se

Jakob Tholander is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Mobile Life Centre and Stockholm University. His research focuses on embodied interaction in a variety of contexts, lately with an emphasis on sports and high-intensity activities. → jakobth@dsv.su.se

Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller is director of the Exertion Games Lab at RMI T University. Previously, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University and has worked at the MIT Media Lab, Microsoft Research, Media Lab Europe, FXPal, Xerox Parc, University of Melbourne, and CSIRO. → floyd@exertiongameslab.org

Joe Marshall is a senior research
fellow at the Mixed Reality Lab, University
of Nottingham. He researches technology
for sports, physical play, and artistic
performance. His current project focuses on
the design of technology to be actively used
while moving or doing sports, supported by a
Leverhulme Trust Fellowship (ECF-2012-677).
→ joe.marshall@nottingham.ac.uk
DOI: 10.1145/2729712 © 2015 ACM 1072-5520/15/03 $15.00