Sustainable Fitness

In the current urgency to reduce the environmental impact of human practices, many industry sectors have been re-designing their practices to increase their environmental sustainability. The introduction of energy-converting equipment that turns the human output on cardio exercise machines into a usable power source a possible way to reduce the carbon footprint of fitness facilities. This research explores persuasive design to implement a novel interface of energy-converting cardio equipment to motivate the energy conversion, while raising environmental awareness and engender a feeling of positive ecological impact during the training. Two interface prototypes were developed and tested using different types of persuasive strategies based on non-authoritative instruction styles, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and cooperative social feedback. The interfaces differed along one main variable: one of the interfaces showed the individual performance with the energy converting equipment (Individual View), while the second displayed not only the converted energy generated by single individuals during their cardio training, but also the energy generated by the other people training in the gym simultaneously (Community View). Both the interfaces were tested in their pragmatic and hedonic dimensions, their attractiveness, and the effectiveness of the persuasive strategies in stimulating a responsible behaviour in increasing green awareness. The outcomes of the study reveal that persuasive design can provide means to stimulate awareness on sustainable behaviours. In particular, cooperative social eco-feedback seems to stimulate the individual motivation towards training aimed at energy conversion.