Walking Together for Motivating Environment
Scope
This workshop explores how physical environments can be designed and experienced to promote physical activity. By inviting participants to walk outdoors and co-design based on their embodied experiences, we aim to generate new ideas for designing physical activity motivating public spaces. A key focus of this workshop is to explore how the urban environment can function as a physical interface for displaying personal or collective activity data, serving as motivational cues, supporting social interaction, and encouraging reflection. Moreover, this workshop aims to offer an alternative to traditional, seated workshop formats by integrating physical movement as part of the engagement process.
Workshop Topics
The workshop aligns with the main themes of the EAI Pervasive Health conference by addressing the following topics.
- Active Lifestyle and Sports
- Social Implications of Pervasive Health Technology and Social Inclusion
- Health/Wellbeing Promotion and Disease Prevention
Timeline
Submissions deadline: 20 July 2025
Notification deadline: 3 August 2025
Camera-ready deadline: 15 August 2025
Format
This workshop includes two main sessions:
- Outdoor walking,
- Co-design and discussion.
Below is the workshop schedule and description of planned activities:
 • Session 0: Welcome introduction (0.5h)
An informal chat will take place while waiting for all the participants to connect. The organizers will introduce themselves and the workshop.
• Session 1: Outdoor walking (1.5-2h)
The walking route will start and end at the workshop venue, passing through different types of urban landscapes to offer varied environmental stimuli, such as street, park nearby. Experienced coaches will lead the group to ensure a safe and supportive walking experience. To help participants gain insights into their walking performance, they will use Strava to track their walk, while coaches will provide updates on their current walking steps and distance. Throughout the walk, participants are encouraged to observe their surroundings, reflect on their motivation, and monitor their performance through data. When they encounter locations that require intervention or significantly impact their walking experience, they are encouraged to take photos for documentation. The photos will be used in the co-design and discussion session.
• Session 2: Co-Design Discussion (2h)
Participants will be divided into small groups of three for this collaborative design session.
Reflection based on walking experience (30min): They will work with a structured canvas that covers key dimensions of the walking experience, including data, motivation, environment, and privacy. Each group will reflect on moments when they felt motivated or demotivated during their walk, discuss how data can be visualized to enhance motivation, how to address privacy concerns and how to balance data visibility with personal boundaries.
Brainstorm (45min): Using insights from their discussions, each group will brainstorm and develop design concepts aimed at motivating both individuals and the public. These concepts will be presented to the larger group, followed byopen discussions to gather feedback and refine ideas.
Presentation (45min): Participants will present their design concepts one by one and provide constructive feedback to others’ concepts.
Paper Submission
Workshop papers should be submitted through EAI ‘Confy+‘ system, and have to comply with the Springer format.
Workshop papers paper length:
- Regular paper: 12-15 pages,
- Short paper: 6-11 pages,
- Other entry: 2-5 pages (published as a part of the EAI PervasiveHealth 2025 Conference Proceedings in a non-indexed Annex section).
All submissions will be reviewed by the organizers of the workshop. The review process will evaluate:
• Relevance to the workshop theme
• Thoughtfulness of the perspective
• Potential to contribute to a diverse and productive discussion
Based on these criteria, we will select a balanced group of participants to ensure a diverse and balanced group. The accepted submissions will be included in the conference proceeding.
Publication
All registered workshop papers will be submitted for publishing by Springer and made available through SpringerLink Digital Library.
PervasiveHealth proceedings are indexed in leading indexing services, such as Web of Science, Compendex, Scopus, DBLP, EU Digital Library, Google Scholar, IO-Port, MathSciNet, Inspec, and Zentralblatt MATH.
All accepted authors are eligible to submit an extended version in a fast track of:
Papers should be submitted through EAI ‘Confy+‘ system, and have to comply with the Springer format (see Author’s kit – Instructions and Templates).
Workshop Chairs
Mengyan Guo
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Yudan Ma
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Jun Hu
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Shengdong Zhao
City University of Hong Kong
Steven Houben
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Steven Vos
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
