In 2007 some 2.8 million people commuted to work in London. While many commuters tend to use public transport (train, underground or bus), over 285,000 people actually walk to work in London. Within larger urban areas such as the London metropolitan area, also referred to as the London Commuter Belt, the regular travel between the place of residence and the place of work can become demanding over a long period of time. According to the work of Haddad et al. long term commuting can have an extensive impact on the physical and mental health of employees and their work performance indicated by initial symptoms such as stress or fatigue. Therefore, regenerating one's energies needs to play a decisive role in the commute to assure a certain level in the quality of work based on the employees accessibility to personal resources.

Sketching proved to be invaluable for bringing the group to decisions because solutions could be easily compared and advantages made clear. During the initial meeting concerns were raised through the use of a storyboard scenario that it may be difficult for users to identify what weather conditions constitute good walking weather and also that the alarm clock may lead users to begin walking in conditions that they subsequently judged to be below their expectations, it was decided that default settings (eg. ‘perfect’ day, ‘lovely’ day etc) should be included to make these choices easier for users.