Stickers for Steps: A Study of an Activity Tracking System with Face-to-Face Social Engagement

Many systems have been designed to study social aspects in physical activity tracking. In most, social functions are performed at a distance, such as posting comments and achievements, or via in-app leaderboards. We present an activity tracking app designed instead to encourage face-to-face encounters. Stickers for Steps seeks to recreate the experience of a physical sticker book, where digital ‘stickers’ are collected in an album, but where stickers are awarded for reaching activity targets. Users will accrue duplicate stickers, which can be swapped with other co-located users over a Bluetooth connection. We explore the usage of our app, reporting on a trial with 33 participants. We find that our app successfully encouraged groups of users to swap duplicates, review progress and to discuss their levels of activity. We provide design recommendations for future activity tracking systems that could incorporate face-to-face interactions.