Sedentary behavior (SB) is prevalent in workplaces, putting office workers at an increased risk of severe health problems. To help designers and researchers gain a better understanding of office workers’ contextual concerns for physical inactivity (reducing SB and enhancing physical activity (PA)), we have proposed a conceptual framework ACTIVE4. This framework advises designers and researchers to consider four key factors that influence office workers’ physical inactivity: active mind, active behavior, active support, and active environment. We conducted three workshops (N=28 design students) to evaluate the framework. The participants found ACTIVE4 helpful in guiding them towards a more systematic understanding of the environmental influences and office workers’ personal needs for reducing physical inactivity. In future work, we will optimize the ACTIVE4 framework’s learning curve as suggested by participants and conduct an expert study to further discuss design opportunities and requirements for the ACTIVE4-related vitality toolkit.
DOCUMENT
Eating healthier at work can substantially promote health and well-being among knowledge workers. However, little has been investigated on designing digital tools and interventions specialized in improving workday eating routines. This paper presents a user-centered contextual inquiry based on mixed-methods with an online questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. This study aimed to understand knowledge workers’ eating experiences and identify design opportunities and application strategies of digital tools to improve current practices. The questionnaire feedback from 54 Dutch knowledge workers revealed that their concerns over productivity, health and nutrition, energy support, and well-being could be decisive in shaping their eating routines at work. Furthermore, the results of 12 interview sessions suggested a set of expected digital features to encourage healthy eating at work, including health knowledge access, goal setting and self-tracking, technology-assisted health programs, and social support. Additionally, our findings also indicated that these digital features should be integrated into the office setting to offer personalized feedback and contextualized health interventions. Based on these findings, we derive design opportunities for workplace digital tools to promote healthy eating and discuss their potential contributions and future work to improved office vitality.
LINK
The scope of technology has expanded towards areas such as sports and vitality, offering significant challenges for engineering designers. However, only little is known about the underlying design and engineering processes used within these fields. Therefore, this paper aims to get an indepth understanding of these type of processes. During a three-day design competition (Hackathon), three groups of engineers were challenged to develop experience-able prototypes in the field of sports and vitality. Their process was monitored based on the Reflective Transformative Design process (RTD-process) framework, describing the various activities part of the design process. Groups had to keep track of their activities, and six group reflection-sessions were held. Results show that all groups used an open and explorative approach, they frequently swapped between activities, making them able to reflect on their actions. While spending more time on envisioning and creating a clear vision seem to relate to the quality of the design concept.
DOCUMENT
