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In the recent twenty years, people have developed a close relationship with digital technology in conducting sports and training. Initially, approximately 1995–2005, the first wave of Sport IT included technology as GPS watches and pulse measurement equipment connected to rudimentary digital services, designed by the brand delivering the watch and only available for the single user’s needs. In the second wave, between years 2006–2010, APIs and platforms started to emerge, facilitating the data to flow between artefacts, services, brands and facilities. Aesthetics in information visualization and other User experience (UX) aspects become popular and the audience becomes broader. The third wave, in the interval of 2011 and forward, could be described as the maturing wave. People now become fanatic about showing results to others – in sport platforms and on general social media. Further, what symbolizes this wave is that the focus in use becomes more on hi-fi information rather than low-fi data. In the third wave, the usage is widely spread and covers a wide range of requirements from a wide range of users. The paper gives a more thorough description of the three waves of Sports IT when it comes to applications and user cases. A thorough description of related work for each wave is given with the main goal to pinpoint where research has given fruitful insights and contribution. In order to give a deeper understanding of the waves, one detailed example of a typical digital service of each wave is presented. Finally, the phenomenon of Sports IT and digital wellness is discussed based on findings shown earlier in the paper.

What does the 3rd wave of mobile computing hold for us, and what are the challenges ahead as we now move from the 1st and 2nd wave to the 3rd wave of mobile HCI? While the 1st wave enabled mobile computing on a basic level – including basic connectivity and the development of mobile devices – and while the 2nd wave was to a large extent about the development of mobile content (from digital services and apps, to services for storing our data in the cloud), the authors suggest that the 3rd wave of mobile computing is less technology-driven, but rather about what mobile computing can enable, and how mobile computing is increasingly a gateway to society at large. In this article, the authors focus specifically on this 3rd wave of mobile computing, and in particular on what they call an inverted digital divide – a state where the mobile technology is in place for its users, but where there is no access to the services in society that rely on mobile computing. In this article, the authors demonstrate this inverted digital divide through a number of examples where they show how this plays out for different groups of people where this is vital in a global world – e.g., visitors to a country such as tourists, immigrants and even people applying for asylum. The authors discuss what is needed in order to bridge this divide and they outline its implications for the further development of mobile services. In concluding this paper, the authors suggest that “digital integration” might serve as a key notion for resolving these issues as we now enter the 3rd wave of mobile HCI.

Sport IT is an emerging global movement. Many research efforts have addressed the potential of IT for promoting physical activity, a countermeasure against the factors that cause welfare problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. This paper presents an overview of research related to IT and physical activity and identifies three reoccurring themes; 1) Measurement and latforms, 2) Support for opportunistic individual training and finally, 3) Encouragement through Toys and Games. These themes or chategories of Sports IT, are furher explored in a detailed and systematic way. This is wrapped up in a discussion of what could be seen as impotant further research addressing the issues found in this body of research.

Motivated students learn much more easily and often teachers make a large effort to motivate them. It is important to get the students to have their own motivation instead from someone else outside, i.e a transition from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. This transition happens when the student come into transitional states. These are facilitated by, so called, transitional objects, which can be usage of pedagogical tools of different kinds. In this paper we highlight and explain the notion of transitional states and exemplifies some transitional objects.

In the Swedish blogosphere, a high rate of blog readers and writers is woman. It includes some real success stories, where female bloggers are well established, widely known, and successful digital entrepreneurs. The study in this paper included 20 interviews with nine female bloggers, and results show upon five strategies for successful digital entrepreneurship: Out of the closet – from peaceful anonymity to strength to bloom on stage, Understanding the essence of technology – from constraint to transparency, Strategic cooperation between blogging peers, Informal relation management: positive encouragement and mentorship for newcomers, and finally, Becoming friends with your visitors.

Game Approachability Principles (GAP) is proposed as a set of useful guidelines for game designers to create better tutorials and first learning levels especially for the casual gamer. Developing better first learning levels can be a key step to ease the casual garner into play proactively - at the conceptual design phase before it is too costly or cumbersome to restructure the tutorials, as would be the case later in the development cycle. Thus, Game Approachability, in the context of game development, is defined as making games initially more friendly, fun, and accessible for those players who have the desire to play, yet do not always follow through to actually playing the game. GAP has evolved through a series of stages assessing accessibility(1) as a stand-alone, heuristic-based approach versus one-on-one usability testing. Outcomes suggest potential for GAP as (I) effective Heuristic Evaluation, (2) adjunct to Usability Testing, and (3) proactive checklist of principles in beginning conceptual and first learning level tutorial design to increase Game Approachability for all levels of garners.

Game developers have begun applying formal human-computer interaction (HCI) principles in design. Desurvire et al [2] adapted a set of Heuristics for productivity software to games. The resulting set, presented at CHI 2004, was Heuristics to Evaluate Playability (HEP). Generalization of these heuristics is required to make them applicable to a multiple of game genres and game deliveries. This follow-up study focused on the refined list, Heuristics of Playability (PLAY), that can be applied earlier in game development as well as aiding developers between formal usability/playability research during the development cycle. Heuristics were formed based on their efficacious scores on the popular game review website, metacritic.com. Fiftyfour gamers rated High and Low ranked games on 116 potential heuristics. Implications for how these Heuristics will help developers improve game quality are discussed. PLAY has been found useful in design evaluation and elfreport survey format.

Previous research in computer games have focused on user experience from the perspectives of game content, graphics, interactivity and underling game story while missing to address the effect of a certain input modality on the user experience. In this paper we report from two user studies that focus on players' experience and performance in relation to the use of two different input modalities for the same game and whether it changes the flow and gameplay in any way. The overall research was according to this whether a game can be more fun to play with a certain input modality? The paper presents the results from these studies and draws conclusions based on these data in relation to computer games and user experiences in the context of mobile game playing.

This paper presents an approach to analyze and re-design evaluation methods. The domain explored in thispaper is evaluation methods for evaluating fun and entertainment. However, the approach presented may be appliedin other domains as well. The approach is conceptually described and two examples of processes where the approachwere used in practice are further discussed. As the map of IT applications and digital media is continuously redesigned,there is a constant need of re-designing evaluation methods.

In this paper we describe how traditional UCD (User Centered Design) techniques in game design of a pervasive game – Furiae. Two focus groups were conducted, with players as well as with experts. The results show upon prosand cons with this technique in game design. It is advantageous because of the enormous richness in feedback, which can be used as input in re-design of thegame. However, results also show that comments in this type of focus group sessions must be carefully analyzed, since the participants might have opinions based on careless assumptions of a broader picture not really known. In general, however, results of the study are very encouraging for use of UCD techniques in game design. UCD show great potential for game design.

This paper reports on how prospective users may be involved in the design of entertaining educational computer games. The paper illustrates an approach, which combines traditional Participatory Design methods in an applicable way for this type of design. Results illuminate the users’ important contribution during game development, especially when intended for a specific target group. Unless prospective members of the target group are consulted it is difficult to foresee opinions of game content, aesthetics and the overall game experience of the users – aspects very much included or at least related to the theoretical concept of intrinsic motivation. Whereas pedagogical experts can contribute with learning content, the users are the ones who can state what is actually fun or not. Users’ participation during the design process enables development of games that are directed to the learners and their expectations. The researchers collaborated with a multimedia design team in development of an educational web-based computer game, developed for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation.