Fitster: social fitness information visualizer

We present Fitster, a social visualization interface that supports fitness motivation among busy people struggling to exercise. Among our pilot group of busy graduate students, we found that a popular time-saving strategy is to recast exercise in terms of everyday, informal activities. Fitster employs pedometer data to support activity tracking, goal setting, and motivation through virtual competitions and teamwork. It contributes to the human-computer interaction (HCI) and health domains by identifying a new facet of exercise behavior and by offering a lightweight social interface to promote fitness motivation and enjoyment.