support evaluation of current training exercises and improve the design of future ones.

HIGHLIGHTED CHALLENGE:
INEXPEDIENT MOVEMENTS

Despite the aforementioned opportunities that introducing interactive technology in training exercises offers, designers should be aware of the challenges that emerge.

Designing interactive sports-training games is a complex task, as the goal of the game is not winning, but rather to strengthen a certain skill. Designers need to consider this, as players will aim to win. This challenge appeared in our work with Pass and Turn, where the game motivated players to perform inexpedient movements.

Since players immerse themselves in the competition, and primarily focus on how to beat their peers, they may end up ignoring the training aspects.

In our case, players looked down to
focus on handling the ball in order to
get a better score, instead of looking
up, as desired in a soccer match. The
challenge of balancing game elements
and sport expediency makes the design
of interactive sports-training games
complex, as it is hard to foresee how
players will approach the game and
how their actions will relate to the
targeted sport. A way of addressing
this challenge is to create games in
collaboration with coaches and reward
the optimal movements of the sport. In
our case, Look Ahead rewards players
who can survey the field while handling
the ball, as they get the opportunity to
predict and anticipate the next move,
and this helped players improve their
movements in general.

CONCLUSION

Our work with a public interactive soccer-training system highlights the opportunities of introducing technology to sports to support the training experience. This work can be expanded to other sports and other training aspects, such as perception and decision-making, which are important but difficult to train. Technology affords exploration of training these aspects in new ways, unavailable in traditional training. We believe the field of interactive sports-training games holds much potential for interaction designers, opening up new opportunities to apply their digital design knowledge to the world of sports. In return, athletes and coaches can provide insights on the potential, power, and prowess of the active human body, expanding our understanding of bodily interactions.

 

Endnotes

1. Jensen, M.M., Grønbaek, K., Thomassen, N., Andersen, J., and Nielsen, J. Interactive football-training based on rebounders with hit position sensing and audio-visual feedback. Intern. J. Computer Science in Sport 13, 1 (2014), 57–68.

2. Footbonaut. Borussia Dortmund training facility. 2012; https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Wh AyX81zP2M

3. Jensen, M.M., Rasmussen, M.K., and
Grønbaek, K. Design sensitivities for
interactive sport-training games. Proc. DIS
2014. ACM Press, 2014, 685–694.

4. Jensen, M.M., Rasmussen, M.K., and Grønbaek, K. Exploring opponent formats. Proc. Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2013. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, 48–60.

 

Mads Møller Jensen is a Ph.D. student in the Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction Group at Aarhus University, and a visiting researcher at the Exertion Games Lab at RMIT University. His research focuses on the intersection between human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and sports, explored through prototypes and inspired by games. → [e-mail]

Majken K. Rasmussen is a research assistant in the Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction Group at Aarhus Univeristy, with a background in design and architecture from the Aarhus School of Architecture. Her main research area is interaction design, focusing on designing interactions and experiences for different contexts. → [e-mail]

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 MI T Media Lab, Microsoft Research, Media Lab Europe, FXPal, Xerox Parc, University of Melbourne, and CSIRO. → [e-mail]

Kaj Grønbaek is a full professor in computer science at Aarhus University and lab manager at the Alexandra Institute, Denmark. His research area is ubiquitous computing and interaction. He has conducted projects integrating architectural design and computer science for more than 12 years in his Lab for Interactive Spaces. → [e-mail] DOI: 10.1145/2724582 © 2015 ACM 1072-5520/15/03 $15.00

Look Ahead. One vs. One.