Grand Challenges in SportsHCI

Title of the Paper

Grand Challenges in SportsHCI

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Area: Research and applications in Sports Human-Computer Interaction (SportsHCI)
• Keywords: Sports technology, physical activity, sports human-computer interaction, grand challenges, performance optimization, social impact

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:
  1. Current SportsHCI research is often focused on solving specific problems in particular domains or sports, lacking a systematic and comprehensive research framework.
  2. There is insufficient scientific understanding of how to optimize athlete performance and provide diverse user experiences.
  3. The integration of technology and sports often remains at the level of short-term experiments, lacking long-term impact assessments and applications in real-world sports environments.
  4. Obstacles include: high difficulty in technology validation, complexity in data integration and interpretation, and insufficient understanding of interactions among multiple stakeholders.
• Significance:
  1. Sports and physical activity directly impact physical and mental health and can improve societal well-being.
  2. Technological innovation in sports can enhance individual sports experiences, promote participation, improve performance, and drive economic growth in the sports industry.
  3. Addressing the challenges in this field can advance both scientific research and societal impact.
• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  1. While technologies and applications in the field are relatively mature, research still lacks a structured perspective and long-term vision.
  2. Related studies have shown that designing user-centered sports systems integrated with technological innovations has the potential to positively impact sports experiences.

Proposed Solutions

• The authors propose 16 grand challenges categorized into 5 thematic areas, systematically analyzing them from user, technology, design, and societal perspectives to provide a long-term research agenda for SportsHCI.
• Innovations:
  1. For the first time, a multidisciplinary, global, and systematic workshop approach was used to summarize the integrated challenges in SportsHCI.
  2. The proposed framework balances technological potential with practical applications, while also focusing on the social value of interaction design.
• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:
  1. Methodology: A five-day international workshop was conducted, involving 22 experts, using categorization boards and digital whiteboard tools to organize and summarize participant feedback.
  2. AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) were applied to further explore potential scientific questions and refine the structured methodology.
  3. Methods for transitioning from laboratory environments to real-world sports scenarios were proposed, including technology validation, data integration, and behavior modeling.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:
  1. Identified 16 major challenges in SportsHCI, categorized into five thematic areas:
     • Optimization of sports performance.
     • Understanding and designing interactions among sports stakeholders.
     • Addressing the complex needs of individual athletes.
     • Transitioning research into real-world sports environments.
     • Designing for long-term societal impact.
  2. Provided detailed subcategories and practical directions for each thematic challenge.
• Advantages:
  1. Offers guidance to the research community, clarifying priority issues in the field and promoting methodological innovation.
  2. By categorizing and analyzing challenges, the study establishes a more comprehensive research framework, avoiding redundant studies.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  1. The workshop brought together experts from various disciplines, covering different aspects of the complex dynamics in real-world sports.
  2. A literature review indicated that most existing studies are limited to short-term and single-dimensional explorations, while this paper attempts to address issues from a multi-layered perspective.
  3. The challenges also emphasize the complexity of the human body, the integration of data science methods, and collaboration among multiple stakeholders.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  1. Limitations:
     • The study heavily relies on expert workshops, which may lead to biases based on different scientific disciplines or practical backgrounds.
     • Negative social contexts (e.g., substance abuse or violent behavior) in sports interactions were not deeply analyzed.
  2. Future Directions:
     • Build more inclusive research teams to address issues such as aging, gender inequality, and participation of individuals with disabilities.
     • Develop long-term scientific evaluation methods, particularly for defining and measuring physical literacy and athletic ability.
     • Foster sustainable research efforts to benefit a broader global audience and conceptually reconstruct the social values of SportsHCI.