Charting the Path: Requirements and Constraints for Technology-Supported Walking Meetings

Journal article, 2021

Traditional meetings involve extensive sitting, which negatively impacts the health of attendees. Understanding how technology can facilitate integrating physical activity into the workplace, such as in walking meetings, is vital to improving workplace wellbeing. To that end, we applied a mixed-method approach to explore requirements and opportunities for walking meetings. We conducted an online questionnaire and a series of interviews with early adopters of walking meetings and created design fictions based on their feedback. We evaluated the design fictions with a second questionnaire and garnered additional feedback from the original early adopters. Based on our findings, we derived four dimensions associated with walking meetings: practical, environmental, social, and cognitive facets. We define attributes, challenges, and opportunities within these dimensions which are important for designing systems that support walking meetings. Our work identifies key considerations for developing systems that integrate physical activity into communication activities.