Active Design - How the built environment matters to mobile games for health
Key: KDHG13-1
Author: Martin Knöll, Tim Dutz, Sandro Hardy, Stefan Göbel
Date: December 2013
Kind: In proceedings
Publisher: New Academic Press
Book title: Context Matters - Exploring and Reframing Games in Context - Proceedings of the Vienna Conference 2013
Abstract: Mobile games for health aim to provide both for an attractive gaming experience and for a positive effect on their users’ wellbeing. Most of these games are context-sensitive, as they take note of the state of the player’s environment and use this information to adapt the game experience. This article points to the limited research available that validates either the short-time physiological effects or the long-term health-related benefits of playing such health games regularly. Furthermore, up until now almost no research has focused on the complex relationship between mobile games, the players’ health and wellbeing, and the (urban) environment in which many of these games are being played in. This article describes, how aspects of health-oriented urban design known to influence people’s everyday activity patterns can have an impact on how we play mobile health games and explains, how this knowledge can be used to improve such games.
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