APEOW: A personal persuasive avatar for encouraging breaks in office work

Proper break taking during office work iss necessary to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and reduce the risk of heart disease. We present APOEW — an avatar for preventing continuous office work without taking breaks. APOEW is a system that uses a personalized robot avatar to encourage proper break behaviour during office work. The avatar signals the need for a break by stooping. The system was designed to be unobtrusive and blend well with the office environment. The avatars are customisable in order to enable users to design their work environment freely. We conducted a user study where we observed developers working in front of their computers next to the avatar. Preliminary results indicate it has no negative impact on the work environment and users are intrigued by the system. Moreover, a survey on attitude to our concept reveals interesting and positive feedback that will help to develop an APOEW system further.