Fidgebot

Abstract

More and more people suffer from chronic health issues related to posture and lack of movement in their office work. We developed a novel approach to motivate employees to be more physically active.Our approach focuses on using the social characteristics of the NAO robot platform to deliver social cues for motivation. Like a coworker who is very motivated to exercise, we used NAO to invite employees to do short "micro-exercises" along with NAO. This approach has multiple advantages when compared to conventional notification systems. Our pilot study shows that employees found it easy and enjoyable to perform micro-exercises with NAO. According to our qualitative data, NAO's social appearance was essential for the motivation of the employees.