The purpose of this research is to explore the roles that sports trackers and running-related data play in runners’ personal goal achievement. A two-week diary study and semi-structured interviews ...were conducted with 22 runners to explore how runners engage with their running-related data to set and achieve their running goals. We found that participants pursued and transitioned between different running goals as their needs, abilities, and surrounding environment changed. We also found multiple motivations that shaped the use of sports trackers. We identified two main categories in runners’ motivations for using trackers and data to achieve their goals. These categories were (i) documenting and tracking in running, and (ii) supporting goal-oriented reflections and actions, with various reasons for use while preparing for and during running. This study provides insights into the psychological effects of running-related data and signals practical implications for runners and developers of tracking technology.
Background
Wearable activity trackers have become a viable business opportunity. Nevertheless, research has raised concerns over their potentially detrimental effects on wellbeing. For example, a ...recent study found that while counting steps with a pedometer increased steps taken throughout the day, at the same time it decreased the enjoyment people derived from walking. This poses a serious threat to the incorporation of healthy routines into everyday life. Most studies aim at proving the effectiveness of activity trackers. In contrast, a wellbeing-oriented perspective calls for a deeper understanding of how trackers create and mediate meaningful experiences in everyday life.
Methods
We present a study of real life experiences with three wearable activity trackers:
Fitbit
,
Jawbone Up
and
Nike
+
Fuelband
. Using need fulfillment as a theoretical lens, we study recent, memorable experiences submitted by 133 users of activity trackers.
Results
We reveal a two-dimensional structure of users’ experience driven by the needs of
physical thriving
or
relatedness.
Our qualitative findings further show a nuanced picture of the adoption of activity trackers and their impact on wellbeing. For instance, while reflection about own exercising practices lost its relevance over time, users continued to wear the tracker to document and collect their runs. More than just supporting behavioral change, we find trackers to provide multiple psychological benefits. For instance, they enhance feelings of
autonomy
as people gain more control about their exercising regime. Others experience relatedness, when family members purchase a tracker for relatives and join them in their efforts towards a better, healthier self.
Conclusions
The study highlights that activity trackers can be more than “tools” to change behavior. Through incorporation in daily life, they offer new social experiences, new ways of boosting our self-esteem and getting closer to our ideal selves.
With an increasing inflow and outflow of users from social media, understanding the factors the drive their adoption becomes even more pressing. This paper reports on a study with 494 users of ...Facebook and WhatsApp. Different from traditional uses & gratifications studies that probe into typical uses of social media, we sampled users' single recent, outstanding (either satisfying or unsatisfying) experiences, based on a contemporary theoretical and methodological framework of 10 universal human needs. Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, we found WhatsApp to unlock new opportunities for intimate communications, Facebook to be characterized by primarily non-social uses, and both media to be powerful lifelogging tools. Unsatisfying experiences were primarily rooted in the tools' breach of offline social norms, as well in content fatigue and exposure to undesirable content in the case of Facebook. We discuss the implications of the findings for the design of social media.
•We studied users' recent, outstanding experiences with Facebook and WhatsApp.•WhatsApp was found to unlock new opportunities for intimate communication.•Facebook was characterized by primarily non-social uses.•Both media were found to be powerful lifelogging tools.
How do we engage with activity trackers? Gouveia, Rúben; Karapanos, Evangelos; Hassenzahl, Marc
Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing,
09/2015
Conference Proceeding
We report on a 10-month in-the-wild study of the adoption, engagement and discontinuation of an activity tracker called Habito, by a sample of 256 users who installed the tracker on their own ...volition. We found 'readiness' to behavior change to be a strong predictor of adoption (which ranged from 56% to 20%). Among adopters, only a third updated their daily goal, which in turn impacted their physical activity levels. The use of the tracker was dominated by glances -- brief, 5-sec sessions where users called the app to check their current activity levels with no further interaction, while users displayed true lack of interest in historical data. Textual feedback proved highly effective in fueling further engagement with the tracker as well as inducing physical activity. We propose three directions for design: designing for different levels of 'readiness', designing for multilayered and playful goal setting, and designing for sustained engagement.
This article presents a study of cultural differences affecting the acceptance and design preferences of social robots. Based on a survey with 794 participants from Germany and the three Arab ...countries of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, we discuss how culture influences the preferences for certain attributes. We look at social roles, abilities and appearance, emotional awareness and interactivity of social robots, as well as the attitude toward automation. Preferences were found to differ not only across cultures, but also within countries with similar cultural backgrounds. Our findings also show a nuanced picture of the impact of previously identified culturally variable factors, such as attitudes toward traditions and innovations. While the participants’ perspectives toward traditions and innovations varied, these factors did not fully account for the cultural variations in their perceptions of social robots. In conclusion, we believe that more real-life practices emerging from the situated use of robots should be investigated. Besides focusing on the impact of broader cultural values such as those associated with religion and traditions, future studies should examine how users interact, or avoid interaction, with robots within specific contexts of use.
Research has extensively explored how personal informatics tools can support people's health goal setting practices. To understand the current state and reflect on the future of goal setting in ...personal informatics, we report the results of a scoping review of 51 papers that use and provide design implications for implementing goal setting. Our review highlights six implications for using goal setting in personal informatics tools (clarity, transparency, flexibility, framing and reframing, personalization, and reflection). We find that goal setting is becoming increasingly complex as the number of goals and their characteristics increase. We discuss these insights and point towards the importance of supporting self-efficacy during goal setting, showing adaptive goal evolution over time, reducing burden during goal setting, and framing goals to understand the complexity of health goals and support a holistic view on goal setting.
Activity Tracking in vivo Gouveia, Rúben; Karapanos, Evangelos; Hassenzahl, Marc
Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
04/2018
Conference Proceeding
While recent research has emphasized the importance of understanding the lived experience of personal tracking, very little is known about the everyday coordination between tracker use and the ...surrounding environment. We combine behavioral data from trackers with video recordings from wearable cameras, in an attempt to understand how usage unfolds in daily life and how it is shaped by the context of use. We recorded twelve participants' daily use of activity trackers, collecting and analyzing 244 incidents where activity trackers were used. Among our findings, tracker use was strongly driven by reflection and learning-in action, contrasting the traditional view that learning is one of deep exploration, following the collection of data on behaviors. We leverage on these insights and propose three directions for the design of activity trackers: facilitating learning through glances, providing normative feedback and facilitating micro-plans.
New frontiers of quantified self 2 Rapp, Amon; Cena, Federica; Kay, Judy ...
Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct,
09/2016
Conference Proceeding
While the Quantified Self (QS) community is described in terms of "self-knowledge through numbers" people are increasingly demanding value and meaning. In this workshop we aim at refocusing the QS ...debate on the value of data for providing new services.
With an increasing emphasis on preventive and user-driven healthcare, the market of personal informatics tools for health, such as wearable activity trackers, has received rapid growth. However, ...recent research has shown that most activity trackers have failed to drive sustained engagement for the majority of users. With this study we present initial insights on a longitudinal study that seeks to understand how users disengage with activity trackers and the role of two design strategies for sustaining users' engagement: contextual information and evolving content.
Social toothbrush Caraban, Ana; Ferreira, Maria José; Gouveia, Rúben ...
Adjunct Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers,
09/2015
Conference Proceeding
The earlier in life an individual adopts healthy practices the more impact those practices have on the long term. In this paper we present Social Toothbrush, a hardware plugin for electric ...toothbrushes that aims to induce proper tooth brushing behaviors on young children and adults. Social Toothbrush does so by taking advantage of family communication and coordination practices to encourage healthy practices. We first describe the theoretical grounding of our design process, Social Translucence, followed by the design and development of Social Toothbrush.
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