Framework for Mobile Applications Aiding the Visualization of Performance Data : A Case Study in Swimming

Sammanfattning

Performance analysis concerns supporting coaches’ decision-making and dismantling the influencing factors of success in sports by measuring performance parameters during training and competition. Modern technology in this field has dramatically increased the volume of data, and there is no systematic approach to presenting athletic performance data to provide fast, efficient, and intelligible feedback. Thus, this thesis tried to answer the questions of what the best visualization techniques to illustrate performance data are and how a mobile application can best be designed to transfer performance information most effectively and intelligibly. To answer these questions, first, a systematic literature review was performed to form a framework of best practices for performance data visualization, and second, a mobile application was developed to collect and visualize athletic data in swimming to serve as a case study and validation of the framework. The latter included an evaluation phase, testing the user experience of 8 participants with the ”User Experience Questionnaire” (UEQ). The framework included asummary of the best practices on data visualization techniques and a section about color coding. Applying this framework, the application visualized the raw force data and average force in a line chart, and further performance parameters, such as strokes per minute, time per stroke, and temporal phase distribution, were displayed unencoded on top of the screen. The UEQ results revealed that Perspicuity (P) and Stimulation (S) are most important to users and received good to excellent scores (P: 1.781 ± 0.31, S: 1.938 ± 0.46) for the present application. These results the author conclude that the application validated the framework of best practices in the literature to aid the effective and comprehensible transfer of valuable information. Developers for performance analysis applications can utilize the framework and follow the design process in this thesis to create beneficial feedback systems. However, further topics like user interface design, development frameworks, and data processing must be considered