An Exploration of Social Requirements for Exercise Group Formation

Summary:
This paper highlighted and described the search for criteria needed in a system to help people find an exercise partner.  A survey was taken by 100 people, most of which were active in fitness activities and clubs.  They responded to questions about their work outs and whether or not they had a workout partner.  The study was done to examine the following questions:


Q1. Do people who exercise have partners? If so, how did
they find them?
Q2. If people do not have exercise partners, what are the
reasons?
Q3. What happens when people do not have an exercise
partner?
Q4. What do people look for in their ideal exercise partner?
Q5. What information would people be willing to share to
find compatible exercise partners?

The data was about what was to be expected from a survey of this type.  Most people had exercise partners and the ones that didn't generally said that they did.


Discussion:
I couldn't help but question how this even got published.  Everything was common sense.  There wasn't even anything in there related to the field of HCI.  They claimed that they were designing a system for people to help find exercise partners but thats just a normal software system.

The biggest flaw in the paper was its predictability.  They made one significant discovery, that people would rather rate potential exercise partners on a range of skill and not a skill level.  I think its a good idea and they should go ahead and make the system but this paper was not needed.