Study of Heart Rate Visualizations on a Virtual Smartwatch

In this paper, we present three visualizations showing heart rate (HR) data collected over time. Two visualizations present a summary chart (bar or radial chart), summarizing the amount of time spent per HR zone (i.e., low, moderate, high intensity). We conducted a pilot study with five participants to evaluate the efficiency of the visualizations when monitoring the intensity of an activity while playing a tennis-like Virtual Reality game. Preliminary results show that participants were performing (with respect to time and accuracy) better with and preferred the bar chart summary.