Graceful Interactions and Social Support as Motivational Design Strategies to Encourage Women in Exercising

Increasingly aware of the importance of active lifestyles, many people intend to exercise more. Yet the main challenge remains to translate these intentions into action. Wearable devices supporting exercise regrettably tend to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach by monitoring activity through quantified data as a motivation strategy. Since certain individuals are driven by social motives to exercise, less addressed through quantification, the impact of these devices on user experience and motivation is questionable.

We contribute to the field by defining interaction attributes of graceful interactions in product design. We then embedded these in designing Grace, a piece of jewelry enabling women to share exercise intentions with friends to encourage social support. Instead of focusing on quantification, we rely on a qualitative approach using graceful interaction. Through this we extend the design space of sport-related wearables for women and inform how to design for exercise motivation through social support and graceful interactions.