Using Virtual Reality to Motivate Physical Activity
Recent research suggests that virtual reality (VR) games can engage players in physical activity. Understanding users’ motivation to engage and enjoy immersive VR exercise platforms can provide important input for the design process as well as assessment of VR exergames.
We developed VR-Rides, an experimental and customizable VR exercise platform. Through considering various features, we examine factors that might influence a player’s experience of need satisfaction (using self-determination theory as a basis for assessment), enjoyment and motivation. Our findings suggest that design features are important but so are the player background (whether they are experienced in video game play or exercise). We suggest creating flexible platforms that can be tailored for players who are entertainment or exercise-focused.
People
- Dr Kiran Ijaz
- Dr Naseem Ahmadopur
- Prof Rafael A. Calvo
- Dr Yifan Yang
Publications
- Kiran Ijaz, Naseem Ahmadpour, Yifan Wang & Rafael A. Calvo (2020) Player Experience of Needs Satisfaction (PENS) in an Immersive Virtual Reality Exercise Platform Describes Motivation and Enjoyment, IJHCI 36(13), 1195-1204.
- Ijaz, K., Wang, Y., Ahmadpour, N., Calvo, R. (2019). Immersive VR Exergames for Health and Wellbeing. 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA 2019), New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
- K. Ijaz, Y. Wang, N. Ahmadpour and R. A. Calvo, “Physical activity enjoyment on an immersive VR exergaming platform,” 2017 IEEE Life Sciences Conference (LSC), 2017, pp. 59-62.
- Ijaz, K., Thomas, J., Ahmadpour, N. (2018). Immersive VR Learning Experiences: Do Expectations Meet Reality? 30th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference (OzCHI 2018), New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
- K. Ijaz, N. Ahmadpour and R. A. Calvo, “New directions in designing exergames for the whole family,” 2017 Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction, pp. 381 -385, Brisbane, Australia