Active Waiting: Facilitating Short Bouts of Exercise During Idle Times for Promoting Physical Activity in Daily Living.

Background: This work explores the interaction design around the approach of making use of otherwise idle waiting times to perform short bouts of exercise.

Objectives: We provide insights on (1) how digital tools can support the utilisation of waiting times for physical activity, and (2) how an application that makes exercises suggestions in a manner designed to be frictionless is experienced by users.

Methods: We developed the Active Waiting (AW) app, a prototype for addressing physical activity barriers such as time and effort, as well as an additional barrier related to the social awkwardness linked to performing exercises in public. AW was iteratively evaluated through guerrilla testing and a field study.

Results: Study participants appreciated the application for making waiting times more interesting, offering viable exercise suggestions, encouraging the taking of additional (active) breaks, and most of all the possibility to select unobtrusive exercises.

Conclusion: The study indicates that unobtrusive and easily accessible exercises integrated into waiting times can effectively reduce barriers to physical activity. While the app was well-received for enabling meaningful use of waiting time, future work could explore more proactive approaches to encourage consistent usage in diverse daily contexts.