Social yoga mats: designing for exercising/socializing synergy

Abstract

Recent works that aim to design for enhancing the physical fitness and/or social lives of senior citizens take limited advantage of the synergistic relationship between exercising and socializing, which is prominently observed during group exercise. In this paper we introduce our design of Social Yoga Mats, which aim to extend this synergy from weekly yoga classes into the home. We approach our design from an embodied interaction perspective and conduct our exploration through a series of sketching-driven co-design sessions with senior yoga students and instructors. We contribute by presenting our design insights in the form of an early articulation of the design space for digital technologies that capitalize on exercising/socializing synergy.