UNDERSTANDING THE REQUIREMENTS OF RUNNERS TO DESIGN A VIRTUAL GROUP RUNNING SYSTEM

Running can be an enjoyable activity that can promote healthier lifestyles and positive social interaction. Running can be done individually or with running partners. However, finding compatible running partners to run together on the same day, time, venue, pace, and distance are not always easy. Currently, there are apps that support virtual group runs, however, the numbers and their functions are limited. As part of a study to investigate the impact of running together in a social setting across the virtual platform, a virtual running system that allows users to run together in a group at different time and different location is proposed. This paper reports the users' requirements in order to design and develop a virtual running system. The overview architecture of the proposed system comprised of a virtual running data server, virtual running applications and android smartphone is also presented in this paper. This study found that the majority (63.51%) of the respondents felt that virtual running was interesting, promotes social interaction, and motivates them to stay active.