Inflated Exertion: Designing a Bodily Extension that Embodies Physical Activity

Interactive technologies such as smartwatches have been increasingly used to track physical activity. However, they often reduce physical activity to numerical outputs, missing the opportunity to enhance the user's perception of, and hence, deepen their connection to, the physical activity. Prior research on bodily extensions has shown the potential for facilitating increased bodily awareness; however, their capacity to transform users' everyday life experiences, such as potential physical activity, remains under-explored. To begin exploring this gap, we introduce “Inflated Exertion,” a pneumatic bodily extension designed to embody physical activity. The bodily extension inflates in response to the intensity and duration of a user's exertion, offering a dynamic embodiment of the person's physical activity to support people to engage with their bodies.