FunFitTech Project: Brainstorming themes and design ideas

In the last update, we were analyzing the data collected from the physical education (PE) teachers’ focus group sessions using affinity diagramming. Recently, we have extracted themes for the design of motion-based exertion games based on this affinity diagram, similar to what we discussed for the children’s focus group analysis. We have been comparing the themes from children and PE teachers so that we can understand both their perspectives on how to make exertion games more fun and effective for children. Our next steps are to use this analysis to brainstorm design ideas and design guidelines for exertion games in general.  After that, we plan to explore the use of participatory design to iteratively design a prototype exertion game that is more effective for children in the long-term, based on our design ideas and guidelines .

I am an undergraduate student at the University of Florida. Working on the FunFitTech project has helped increase my knowledge in research in computer science. I’ve learned a lot about the general steps in writing a research paper. I’ve learned new things like affinity diagramming, the importance of design and placement of figures, and the importance of choice of words in order to correctly illustrate to the readers what we as writers are trying to explain.  Overall this has been a great learning experience.