Using Your Mobile To Get Mobile
The holiday season is upon us; a time for shopping, family, and eating…and more eating. Turkey, Ham, stuffing, gravy, chocolate—not exactly a diet of Olympians. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season also tends to put a crimp on free time. Between shopping, traveling and spending time with family there is often little time to hit the gym, the courts, or the trails.
Enter Ubifit. Researchers at the University of Washington and Intel have developed a cell phone application which automatically tracks your workouts. After clipping Intel’s Mobile Sensing Platform (equipped with an accelerometer) to your waist, your every movement is tracked and recorded. The software then graphically displays your progress throughout the week. As you workout, an empty lawn is gradually replaced by flowers—each workout representing a different color of flower. If you reach your workout goal for the week you are rewarded with a butterfly.
The idea behind the application is simple: motivate users to workout more. Early studies show that it works. Users equipped with Ubifit were more likely to stick with their set workout goals than users without the device. Visualizing positive feedback motivates people to work harder.
Though Ubifit is not yet available to the public (it is still one to two years away), the concept of using graphical feedback on mobile phones to motivate users is fascinating. The potential applications are nearly limitless.
For example, an application connected to your credit/debit accounts to track spending. As you save throughout the month, a bar inches closer to your goal. If you spend, the bar goes down. Though a user may not always save the desired amount, awareness is created.
Another example: your office wants to save X amount of paper this month. Each employee in the office is equipped with a program connected to print management software. As days go by, progress is tracked, and positive or negative feedback is transmitted to employee phones.
As mobile phones become more ubiquitous, and technology continues to advance, I think we will be amazed at how thoroughly mobile applications affect our life.
