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To address this we survey existing literature related to climbing in order to
identify a set of motivational themes we believe could be valuable to consider
when designing to support climbing experience. To see how well these themes
have been considered we reexamine existing digital climbing experiences and
offer our suggestions for design opportunities which could allow these systems
to address themes not yet supported.
2
Identifying Motivational Themes from Climbing
Literature
We know as interaction designers that requirements of the desired user group
should be kept in mind throughout the design [20, p.352-388]. However in climb-
ing (and any extreme sport) it is important to consider more than the system
requirements since for these groups the experience is just as important (if not
more so):
“The whole experience of climbing is important, not one particular part
or moment” - Scott Backes [23, p.162]
In this section we investigate existing literature on climbing motivation, in-
cluding climbing literary works and work from the fields of sport science, psy-
chology and sociology in order to gain an understanding of why climbers climb.
By identifying recurring observations and themes present in this work we were
able to establish five key motivational themes (which are illustrated in figure 1).
2.1 Maintaining Challenge
Levenhagen [15] develops a stage model of climbing purposes describing two pri-
mary motivations for climbers: to experience achievement and flow, and to build
character. Both these motivations require that challenge is maintained through-
out the experience to ensure that a sense of progression is also experienced. This
marriage of challenge and flow is also discussed by Csikszentmihalyi et al. [4]
who state that an optimal experience of flow can be maintained by “setting our-
selves challenges” [5]. Loukov´aandVomacko [17] and Vomacko and Gavel [25]
also found that “Challenge” was among one of the highest motivations reported
by climbers. Therefore we can identify that maintaining challenge is a key theme
as it helps to maintain flow and achievement, and to also allow the climber to
build character through a sense of achievement.
2.2 Risk as a Measure of Progress
Interestingly we initially assumed that extreme sports attract thrill seekers who
pursue the sport primarily for the risk involved. However, it appears that risk
plays a larger role in climbing as discussed by Ewert [8] who states that climbing
simply because of the risk is actually a low motivational factor. This highlights
 
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