Designing for enhancing sports experience in bouldering using sonification

This thesis examines the application of sonification in action sports to enhance the sports experience, through a focus on bouldering. Previous research in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Sports Sciences tends to focus on the athletic performance of sportspeople. This athletic performance can be measured using various sport-specific metrics and can be influenced by introducing smart systems to the sports, sportspeople, or the environment (e.g., smartwatches, heart rate monitors, fitness trackers). However, recent research shows that the impact of these systems is not limited to athletic performance, but also on the mental and emotional state of the sportspeople. Taking a holistic view on the impact of these smart systems, focusing on the experience of the sportspeople, remains an open venue for HCI research. While addressing this holistic experience, multiple factors determine the interaction between the systems and sportspeople. Each action sport inhibits its sensory blueprint, such as feeling water flow in swimming, maintaining balance in skiing, or assessing rock texture and grip in climbing. Hence, interactive technologies for sportspeople should also leverage different modalities, such as visual, sound, or tactile sensations based on the unique sensations of each sport. Among these modalities, while visual feedback has been extensively studied, the role of sound as a feedback modality remains relatively unexplored in the context of action sports. Within the scope of this thesis, I focused on the bouldering sport, which is a form of climbing that emphasizes short, challenging routes or "problems" typically undertaken without the use of ropes or harnesses. By narrowing my focus to bouldering, I aimed to delve deeper into its unique physical, mental, and emotional aspects, and explore the use of sound and its potential impact on boulderers' experience, in terms of learning, engagement, performance, and motivation. During this exploration, my main research question was, "How can we design to enhance the sports experience for boulderers using sound?" To investigate my main research question, I formulated five sub-questions and structured my study into five work packages (WP). I began by identifying potential opportunities for HCI research within the bouldering experience, asking: What would be the needs of boulderers from technologies that support their kinesthetic learning? (SubQ1). This led to a broader inquiry: What are the design opportunities in bouldering for supporting embodied learning with wearable technologies? (SubQ2), forming the foundation of WP1. Taking an iterative prototyping approach, knowledge gathered in WP1 was used in creating research artifacts in WP2 (SoniBoard and AudioClimb). WP3 dived into the use of sound modality in bouldering, using the prototypes from WP2. Here, I followed "How can support systems using sound feedback be designed to enhance the kinesthetic learning of intermediate-level boulderers? (SubQ3)" to investigate an underexplored dimension in HCI research, the interplay between kinesthetics and sonified feedback. Leveraging the findings from WP3, further iterations to the prototypes were made (SoniBould), asking "How can we create sonifications that enhance the bouldering experience? (SubQ4)". This question was addressed through workshops involving sound experts, as part of WP4. Finally, findings and results of my studies were collected under WP5 to answer the question, "What are the design considerations for systems that use sonification for enhancing sports experience in bouldering? (SubQ5)" The main contribution of this thesis is two-fold. First, design insights, in the form of craft knowledge, on designing interactive systems for sonification, based on my explorations on the use of sound in action sports, to enhance the bouldering experience. Second, design considerations, comprising user and expert insights, were synthesized through collaboration with boulderers, route-setters, sound experts, and interaction designers to inform the design of new interactions involving sound and SportsHCI research.