Pediluma: motivating physical activity through contextual information and social influence

We present Pediluma, a shoe accessory that tracks and visualizes the wearer's physical activity by varying the intensity of a lighted enclosure. In particular, the more physically active the wearer is, the more the device glows. We hoped the desire to maintain a positive, "glowing" state would encourage users to engage in more physical activity. We describe our two-week, four-condition, 18-participant deployment and user study. Results indicate participants wearing our device were more physically active than participants in our three control groups (each isolating different design and experimental factors). We share the many lessons we learned from our iterative design, post-deployment data analysis and interviewers with participants.