Exploring the Data Tracking and Sharing Preferences of Wheelchair Athletes

Abstract

Sports are increasingly data-driven. Athletes use a variety of physical activity monitors to capture their movements, improve performance, and achieve excellence. To understand how wheelchair athletes want to use and share their activity data, we conducted a study using a prototype wheelchair fitness tracking device, which served as a probe to facilitate discussions. We interviewed 15 wheelchair basketball players about the use of performance data in the context of wheelchair basketball, and we discuss several implications for using and sharing automatically-tracked data. We find that the wheelchair basketball community is less concerned about the privacy of their data, and, in contrast to health data, athletes are motivated by competition. We conclude with a set of design opportunities that leverage digitized performance metrics within wheelchair basketball, which could apply to the broader wheelchair and adaptive athletics community.